Music from a Farther Room
by Threadbare Threnody
Summary: Sequel to "Without Thorn the Rose". Fresh from his descent into the depths of Azkaban, Harry is plunged into a new world of intrigue at Hogwarts, where he contends with accusations of dark magic, vicious classmates, the brooding power hidden in the Forbidden Forest, and the mystery of his own identity. AH. Minor slash.
1. The Hunter

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

_"__For I have known them all already, known them all:  
__Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,  
__I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;  
__I know the voices dying with a dying fall  
__Beneath the music from a farther room.  
__So how should I presume?"_

_"__We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
__By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown  
__Till human voices wake us, and we drown."_

— Two excerpts from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

* * *

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own any rights to Harry Potter, but nor am I making any money off this. If anything I'm actually losing money.

Sequel Warning: THIS IS A SEQUEL! Since I have developed an alternate history for this series, nothing is going to make a lick of sense unless you have read "Without Thorn the Rose". Also, I will be referring liberally to events from the last story without necessarily reminding you of what is being referred to, so you might want to refresh yourself even if you have read it.

Slash Warning: This is primarily a drama, mystery, fantasy, and adventure story, but my intention is to have LV/HP slash be a major portion of the story in future sequels. It will NOT happen in this story because Harry is eleven to twelve. There will be some minor slash involving other characters in this story.

More notes at the bottom.

* * *

**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 1. THE HUNTER ─┴─┬─┴─┬─**

"Not that one," Harry said gruffly, seizing the arm of the boy next to him without looking up from the rare Bestiary that he was poring over.

They were in the back room of Obscurus Books, a used bookstore that Harry favoured because the owner was too busy to scrutinize closely the books that he acquired. Harry had been studiously ignoring the other boy, whilst secretly keeping watch over him from the corner of his eye. This was a skill that Harry was practicing, and presently he had seen the boy slip a slim volume down the back of his trousers.

Turning to look at the other boy in the face for the first time, Harry explained, "You don't want to nick that one, it's got—"

Harry broke off with a slight widening of his eyes as he saw the other boy's face. The sight before him was so mesmerizing that for some moments he was deaf to the other's words. If Harry had been in the midst of some enchanted garden, he might have been prepared to meet such an ethereal creature. Finding this individual in the back room of a grubby little shop at the cut-rate end of Diagon Alley was—unexpected, to say the least. Distantly, he perceived that the boy was struggling to free his arm from Harry's magically enhanced grip.

"Sorry," Harry muttered, releasing the boy, who backed away defensively and rubbed his arm. "You're just so…" He could not finish this miserable sentence.

_Beautiful. _Harry put the word to it, in his own thoughts, at least. The other boy was extraordinarily beautiful. His features might have been porcelain, so fine and well-shaped were they, and so smooth and pale was his skin. His lips were full and pink as blossoms, and his eyes as grey as pewter. His hair was so blonde it was nearly white, and it fell to his shoulders. Here, the impression of perfection ended abruptly, for the boy's hair was tangled and dirty.

Harry's eyes drifted downward, drinking in the whole picture. The boy wore a short, open robe of the sort that the wizarding youth favoured in those days, but though the cut of it was ordinary, not unlike a muggle jacket, the material was bizarre. It appeared to have been crocheted out of yarn by someone whose eyesight was failing, for there were various mistakes scattered throughout the pattern, and the bottom half was bright fuchsia, while the top half was mauve. Underneath this, the boy wore a muggle t-shirt which had once sported some sort of logo, now unintelligible, and a pair of muggle jeans with rips over the knees and mud splatters on the shins.

At the boy's feet was another startling contrast, as if to bookend the peculiarity. The boy's shoes, although they were very nearly obscured with a layer of dried mud, appeared to Harry's keen eyes to be made of dragon leather, making them worth their weight in gold. Were it not for that observation, Harry would have supposed the boy to be rather impoverished. With it, he did not know what to make of the boy.

"Stop staring, you wanker!" the boy snapped, blushing colourfully, and raking his dirty hair over the side of his face as if attempting to hide it.

Harry was not unsympathetic to the impulse, as he conducted his examination from behind the shade of his own deliberately overgrown fringe, which he had, as usual, glued to his forehead, so that it would hide his scar even if a wind disturbed it.

The boy seemed to grow more and more anxious the longer Harry simply looked at him, and shortly began edge around Harry towards the front room and the exit. Abruptly, Harry remembered why he had stopped the other in the first place.

"Just wait a minute, I want to talk," Harry said, moving sideways to block the exit. The boy reared back as though Harry were some species of poisonous snake, and Harry wondered a bit guiltily if this boy wasn't rather accustomed to being harassed in the back rooms of shops.

The boy's lovely grey eyes darkened like storm clouds moving across the sun. "Talk? I'll talk. If you show me your hands," he demanded, in a tone that betrayed both anger and fear.

Harry raised his empty hands in a placating gesture. He even smiled. "See? No wand."

The blonde's eyes flashed. "Take off your gloves, then."

Harry's face froze, and his heart hitched a little in his chest.

* * *

"Leave the bandage on," James had said, as they left the hospital, and Harry had understood the need to cover his hand without any need of explanation. He understood, perfectly, why someone in James' position couldn't be seen to let his son possess any instrument for breaking the law by doing magic outside of school. So there was no need to say anything about the pair of grey wool gloves that Harry found on the foot of his bed the next day. And yet James did.

"I just don't want any ugly rumours getting started," James continued uneasily. "You know how people talk. Doing wandless magic is one thing, but doing it with something like _that_… They'll think you're turning dark."

The curly-haired man lowered his head with a sigh, as if he could hide his disgust and fear, or the fact that he obviously agreed with the very ideas he wanted to prevent.

"It's not illegal," Harry muttered in a half-hearted protest.

"Oh, no," James snapped back sarcastically. "Not to _have _it. Only to _get_ it and to _use _it." The man raked his fingers through his wild and curly brown hair, calming himself. "So I want you to always cover it up in public, okay? In fact, you may as well cover it in private, too, just to get in the habit."

Harry clenched his coral-pierced hand. The hard substance, so intimately entwined with his flesh, gave him an odd sensation, like a memory of pain.

"All right, Harry?" James asked quietly.

Harry's gaze lifted, a magnet being sluggishly drawn into line against its will, and fixed on James' face. In his father's eyes, Harry saw an echo of his own vulnerability, of his own longing, and he both loved and hated the man for that.

"I need you to do this, for both our sakes," James urged, sitting down on the bed next to Harry and placing his large, warm, and calloused hand on the boy's thin, bony shoulder.

At his touch, something convulsed in Harry's heart, and he had to look down to hide the trembling of his lower lip.

"Yeah, all right," Harry muttered, refusing to look at the man again. "But I can't wear them all the time. They'll get in the way of writing and stuff."

"Here," James said, with a flash of his old, easy confidence, and took the gloves. With his wand, he cast ten quick severing charms, removing the fingers. "You can start a new fashion. Wizards are always hiding their scars, so if anyone asks, just say you have a scar from the attack."

James tugged the now fingerless gloves onto Harry's hands one at a time, as gently as if he were handling a kitten. Harry's heart throbbed painfully again.

"After all," James continued with a bright smile, "even I assumed that's where you got that bloody thing. And _I _should have known better." He glanced into Harry's pale celadon-coloured eyes with his own chocolate brown ones, and registered the wound he had scored. His smile fizzled out like an ember in the rain, leaving behind a silent plea for understanding.

What Harry's face must have looked like, he couldn't know, for inside him warred anger, contempt, shame, hatred, sadness, and, despite all that, love. He nodded, stiffly, and that was the end of the matter. They never spoke of the coral or the gloves again.

* * *

Back on Azkaban, Harry had never feared his coral or his magic being discovered by anyone but James, who had a legitimate reason to disapprove, being Harry's father and responsible for his safety. Like Bjorn, Harry was proud of his hard-won magic, the more so for its being wild and free of rule by law. But, somehow, the very act of hiding seemed to have made him afraid of discovery. And so the blonde boy's curt request for him to remove his gloves set his heart pounding.

"What do you mean?" he demanded sharply.

The other boy eyed Harry with a mixture of curiosity and caution. He was on the verge of speaking when a board creaked in the next room, and both boys spied the owner of the shop bearing down on them with a vein pulsing ominously in his forehead. The man must have heard raised voices and come to investigate.

Turning back to the blonde, Harry had just enough time to see the lovely boy smirk nastily, and then Harry was being shoved out of the way, into a teetering tower of books that collapsed with a hail of thuds, bringing several neighbouring stacks down with it in a cascade of disorder. As Harry flailed amidst the heap of dusty tomes, the blonde darted nimbly around the riled shopkeeper and pelted straight for the door of the shop.

There was a moment, as Harry lay covered in books, when he could have simply shrugged and disowned the matter. There was certainly no gain in it for Harry, to extricate the boy from his trouble. He was never sure, afterward, what made him follow the boy. Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps sympathy. Whatever the case, something in Harry urged him to give chase.

"Stop!" Harry called. With a burst of half-formed magic, he flung the pile of books that hampered his movements across the room and sprang to his feet. The shopkeeper's meaty arms flailed for purchase on Harry's cloak, but the dark-haired boy ducked them and dashed after the blonde.

He was too late. The blonde burst through the door of the shop, and, as Harry had known they would, the chain of runes engraved around the doorjamb flashed gold and emitted a high-pitched squeal.

"Damn," Harry cursed. "Please don't!" he called to the shopkeeper, but the man merely smiled contemptuously at him.

"Too late," he informed Harry with a deep swell of satisfaction. The spell to inform Aurors on the blonde was already sailing through the air from the man's wand.

If the shopkeeper said anything else, Harry wasn't there to hear it; he was already racing out the door. In the street, he shielded his eyes from the sun, which was lowering over the horizon and casting long shadows. Painted in the orange hues of sunset, the Alley might have been some lonesome Western canyon. The high heat of summer was still palpable in the air, and Harry burst out in sweat immediately.

The blonde was nowhere to be seen, but Harry spied his soul a little way down the Alley. Rather than moving towards the upscale end of Diagon, where he would have been more or less safe, the boy seemed to be making for Knockturn Alley. That was bad for the boy, but it suited the plan that was gathering in Harry's mind.

Harry ducked into the gap between two buildings, and, once hidden in the shadows, rendered himself invisible and climbed the wall, lizard style, with sticking charms. He had become rather good at this style of climbing on the treacherous cliffs and fortress walls of Azkaban. In less than a minute, he was leaping from rooftop to rooftop, using magic to springboard his jumps and to cushion his landings.

Five hops put him directly above the blonde, who had turned into Knockturn, just as Harry had supposed he would. The boy seemed to be looking for someone. He peered into the shop windows and the alleys, but stopped short of actually entering any. This was the first modicum of good sense Harry had seen in the boy, for Harry knew too well what sort of fate sometimes awaited children in the darkened byways of Knockturn. He had been both the victim and the perpetrator of murder there.

Unfortunately, it would have been better for Harry's plan had the boy acted more foolishly and turned off the main street. Nevertheless, Harry awaited his chance, prowling from one rooftop to the next, as the boy crept ever deeper into the Alley.

Harry saw the pursuers first, or, rather, saw the souls within them, which were quiescent and colourless in death. The blonde felt them soon after, shuddering and wrapping his robe tighter about himself as the shop windows at the end of the street began to frost over. Within moments, the few persons loitering about the street had scurried into the shops or into the shadows, and Harry heard more than one lock clunking. The blonde boy tried the door of the nearest shop, but when he found it barred, he simply collapsed there, and drew himself into a shivering ball in the nook of the doorway.

Harry had been hoping that the blonde would flee into an area where he—and the dementors—would be out of sight of prying eyes, but that no longer seemed likely. The last thing Harry wanted to do was reveal himself, but apparently that could no longer be avoided, unless he either abandoned the boy to be captured, or slaughtered the dementors in the middle of the street. There was a moment of strained indecision during which Harry weighed his options, but then his eyes fell onto that lovely face, wrought with terror, and his reckless anger at the loathsome creatures sparked anew. He would not abandon the boy.

Strengthened by his conviction, Harry leapt down from the roof, landing without a sound. Fortunately, it had been chilly on Azkaban when Harry left the island that morning, and he was still carrying a cloak in his knapsack. Harry threw the cloak over himself, with the hood up, and covered his upper face with a swirl of shadow to disguise himself. Then he removed his invisibility and approached the crouching blonde.

"Come on, we've got to run!" Harry called, grabbing the boy by the hand and pulling.

The blonde, however, seemed locked into his huddled position. Harry, who had never been bothered by the aura of despair and terror that dementors exuded, hadn't counted on being unable to budge him. With a curse under his breath, he summoned his dove patronus, Pax, and sent the ghostly silver creature to light on the blonde's shoulder.

The blonde's paralysis of terror dissipated then, and he lifted his head to look tearfully at his rescuer. Far from being grateful and ready to follow Harry, however, the boy became panicked anew at being manhandled by a stranger whose face was hidden.

"What do you want?!" he cried. "Leave me alone!"

"Idiot," Harry growled, "they're after you!"

"Who's after me? Aurors?" The whites showed all around the blonde's irises.

Harry rolled his eyes at the boy's naiveté. "As if Aurors would waste their time on chasing shoplifters! No, _them_!" He stepped aside and indicated the pair of approaching dementors, who were still a hundred yards or so away.

The boy's eyes became riveted to the tattered and fluttering black robes that shrouded the fiends that glided with majestic sloth down the deserted Alley. He made no sound, but his already pale skin turned as white as snow.

"Come on!" Harry insisted impatiently. "Follow me."

This time, the blonde went willingly—anywhere, even with a stranger, if it took him away from the nightmarish creatures bearing down on him. Harry steered them into the nearest unoccupied alley, right to the back, where the walls of three buildings met in a jumbled heap of trash and detritus: food wrappers, broken bottles, half-rotted crates, and the desiccated corpse of a rat.

"We're trapped!" the blonde cried.

"Not us," Harry said with grim pleasure in his voice. "_Them_."

He turned on the two dementors, who were only now drifting into the alley, borne aloft by their ragged black cloaks, which flapped in some unearthly wind, exhaled, perhaps, from the mouth of Tartarus itself. Their hands were skeletal claws with only ragged strips of putrefied flesh clinging to the bones, which they extended outward with a hungry, grasping motion, as they loomed over the two boys.

As they approached Harry closer, however, the creatures stopped. The green-eyed boy peered up into the eyeless faces half-hidden by their hoods, wondering, briefly, whose bodies these had been, before the souls inside had been swallowed by their new brethren.

"You know me?" he asked them. He relaxed instinctively into a battle-ready crouch—feet planted wide, knees slightly bent, left hand raised in their direction.

"Ha-a-alf so-o-oul," one of them rasped, with the sound of a death rattle.

"Hu-u-unter of the hu-u-ungry ones," the other croaked. "You are no-o-ot our qua-a-arry."

"But you are mine," Harry answered with a twisted grin, and, without warning, unleashed a Patronus-infused jet of white and silver flames that engulfed the exposed faces and hands of the undead creatures.

What transpired then would surely have turned the stomach of anyone less accustomed to gore. The dementors shrieked in agony as the flames raced greedily over their bodies, attacking not only their flesh, but also the dark magic which bound them to this world. Their struggles were frenzied, but Harry held them in place with a magical grip of iron, urging the fire to burn ever hotter and faster, to consume the flesh to which those stubborn shreds of soul still clung like hateful leeches.

The heat was intense, but it did not bother Harry. With his instinctive, inborn ability to freeze anything, including himself, his body cooled itself automatically. He was careful to shield the surrounding area, however, from the blazing heat and light of the fire. It would not do to leave any evidence. To any onlookers, it must have appeared as though Harry were standing in a bubble of warring shadow and flame.

It was not only anger that drove Harry to fan the flames ever higher, but also his disgust for the scene. The dementors collapsed into ever-shrinking mounds of melting, sizzling, smoking flesh, their bones popping and cracking like green wood. The smell was vile, but rather than fanning it away, Harry just intensified the fire, until the last shred of them was consumed.

Not even soot or ashes remained; all that was left were their cloaks, still flapping unnaturally from time to time like a muscle twitching after hard use. Harry picked up the garments with a distasteful expression, despite their having been scoured clean in the furnace of his fire, and stuffed them into his knapsack. Then, checking that his face was still hidden, he turned around to see how the blonde was.

No one was there.

Harry searched the area for several minutes, seeking any sight of the blonde's soul, or any trace of how he had left the blocked end of the alley without slipping past Harry, but he found nothing. The boy was simply gone.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

So, finally here is the first chapter of the sequel to my last story. I have more or less finished the first draft of this story, and am now working on the second draft. I plan to post chapters as they are complete. The story should be about 100k words when complete.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this update. :)


	2. Scions

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own any rights to Harry Potter, but nor am I making any money off this. If anything I'm actually losing money.

Notes: Thanks so much for all the faves and follows, and most especially the reviews. They mean a lot to me, and each one is a little impetus to keep writing.

* * *

**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 2. SCIONS ─┴─┬─┴─┬─**

Harry woke gasping for breath like a drowning man breaking the surface, with the nightmare running off him like foul water. It took him longer than he liked to recognize the ceiling and walls above him, and the unfamiliarity was jarring; some animal instinct in Harry had learnt to fear waking in strange places.

He had dreamt of Hogwarts. In his dream, the sorting hat had cried _'SLYTHERIN!_' and, as if that were some secret signal, everyone had attacked him, swarming over him like the dementors in the cavern beneath the sea, and Harry had defended himself to the death—_their _deaths. He had slashed them to pieces with sprays of blood, incinerated them with walls of flame, and crushed them beneath chunks of stone ripped from the walls. The splash of hot blood on his face and the smell of burning flesh had been so real that the sensations lingered into his waking state.

Worst of all, in the dream, he had revelled in the maelstrom of death, and the triumph of his power, ascendant, had filled him with ecstatic glee. But in the harsh light of morning, that conceit had vanished like mist, leaving nothing but self-reproach. He felt sickened by the remembered images, and by whatever dark gutter in his mind had birthed them.

Slowly, he recalled himself to the present time. He was in the Wizenwarden's cottage on Azkaban, in the smaller bedroom, which would be his for the few weeks until school began. Having been promoted to Wizenwarden of Azkaban after the premature death of the previous warden, Oakes, James was now entitled to the largest of the cottages in the wizenguards' village. Nevertheless, they had been obliged to wait some weeks before moving in, as James was not so cruel a man as to evict a widow and her three children before they had arranged new lodgings. As such, the Potters had just passed their first night in their new abode.

Although the leader of Echidna's cult had perished, and the other members had been wiped of their memories and their sanity via some dark spell, Harry still had his doubts about the wizenguards. James had assured him that the remaining guards who had been hired before his time had been thoroughly screened and cleared of any wrongdoing, but Harry still wondered if there wasn't something about the job, the prison, or even the island that had a pernicious influence on the weak-minded.

Despite his persistent worries, however, things were looking up in the Potter household. It had been several months since James had taken the position as Wizenwarden, and it was as though he had come out of hibernation. Harry wasn't sure if it was because the horde of dementors had decreased in number, because the demoralising atmosphere of corruption and desperation amongst the guards had dissipated, or because summer was thawing the man's mood, but, whatever the case, he was glad. James was no longer locked in the stuporous malaise from which he had suffered, and he seemed to have regained some sort of inner strength.

Of course, James being awake and cognizant meant that he was more apt to notice what Harry was up to, but on this matter they had reached an uneasy truce. As long as Harry didn't openly flaunt his misbehaviour, James pretended not to notice any small slips that should have tipped him off. For example, a few days previously, a receipt from Flourish and Blotts had fallen out of one of Harry's books, and James had picked it up. The receipt bore a date on which Harry should have been on the island with no way of leaving.

In truth, Harry had been leaving the island regularly by flying in a purloined dementor's robe, just as his uncles, Rabastan and Rodolphus, had. After staring at the damning receipt for a tick, however, James had simply placed it back in the book and walked off with a wooden face. Harry did not know what to make of this behaviour, but he did not dare disturb the uneasy balance which afforded him his freedom.

The creaking of boards downstairs in the kitchen indicated that his father was up and about, and the aroma of frying bacon indicated that the man had woken on the right side of the bed. Harry decided that he, too, would endeavour to get up on the right side.

"Morning," Harry called—if not exactly cheerfully, then at least civilly.

"Morning," James replied with a tentative smile.

This was a somewhat ironic greeting, since it was summer, and the sun only grazed the horizon at night, never dipping below it, and hence no particular time could adequately be described as morning. It had often occurred to Harry that these months-long arctic days and nights seemed to exist in some continuum only tangentially linked to the rest of the world. It was as though the clock hands had gone all the way around, and then, rather than beginning again, had spiralled away on some other, fantastic spool of time.

"There you are, you little blighters," James muttered to the cutlery that he had opened several drawers to find. "It's lovely to have more room, but I can't seem to remember where anything is."

"I know," Harry agreed, beginning to pick at the eggs and toast that James had already placed on his plate under a warming charm. "I kind of panicked when I woke up and didn't know where I was. Thought I might have been—" He broke off, abruptly.

James looked at him intently. "Been…?"

Harry exhaled sharply. "Nothing, never mind." He began spreading jam over a triangle of toast.

A shadow of concern passed over James' face as he turned back to the bacon, flipping the strips with a panache born of years of experience and a native grasp of household magic. With a quick thrust of the pan, the sizzling strips of flew up the side of the pan, arced through the air, and landed gracefully on their opposite sides. Harry's mouth twitched up a little at the corners in admiration.

"Are you still having nightmares?" James asked.

Harry's smile slid off his face at that. "Why do you ask?"

James sighed exasperatedly. "Just because I—" he started to say, then stopped himself. "You don't have to—" This, too, he seemed to think better of. At last, he settled on, "I thought I heard you thrashing around upstairs, but I was in the middle of cooking, so I couldn't check on you. I was worried."

Harry remembered suddenly the night when he had returned to Azkaban after being chased through Knockturn and temporarily killed. He had woken from a nightmare of being chased to the feel of James' large, rough hand caressing his hair and soothing him from his fears. His tension eased at the memory, and he decided, for once, to be honest.

"I did have a nightmare. Just a—a stupid school thing. Not about…you know…"

James' eyes darkened for a moment at the veiled reference to other events about which Harry might have nightmares, but the moment passed quickly. A tapping sounded from the window then, and Harry paid the owl for that day's _Prophet_. He unrolled the paper without much interest, but his eye was instantly caught by the lead article—or, rather, by the photograph accompanying it.

There was the blonde boy, in the same ratty outfit he had worn that day in the Alleys, looking somewhat the worse for wear. His expression was dazed and pale, and every now and then he flinched a little, as though someone had made a loud noise. Perhaps the photographer's flash had startled him.

But none of that was terribly interesting. What really interested him was the name given in the caption. _Draco Malfoy_.

**_MALFOY HEIR ASSAULTED BY DEMENTORS_**

_Draco Malfoy, aged eleven years, son of the well-known philanthropists Mr. Lucius and Mrs. Narcissa Black Malfoy, was chased and accosted by two dementors this evening, resulting in injuries which caused him to be admitted to St Mungo's for observation._

_According to witnesses, the incident began at Obscurus Books, in Diagon Alley, where Mr Malfoy unknowingly removed a book from the premises without paying. Shop owner Urien Blecher reported the incident immediately, and Aurors dispatched two dementors to make an arrest. According to a spokeswizard for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Aurors in question did not take the time to determine the age or identity of the supposed criminal before acting._

_"They're overworked," said an anonymous source in the DMLE. "The budgets have been whittled down to crumbs, and there simply aren't enough Aurors to go around at the moment. That's why dementors are being used to make arrests. Frankly, it was a disaster waiting to happen."_

_Upon being apprehended by the dementors, Mr Malfoy's terror activated his child-safe emergency portkey, and he was transported automatically to his home. He was then taken promptly to St Mungo's by his parents. According to sources in the paediatric ward of Mungo's, the only injury was mental and emotional shock, including loss of memory, such as is commonly reported after unprotected contact with multiple dementors._

_During his stay in hospital, Aurors took Mr Malfoy's statement. Mr Malfoy, having still not realized the cause of the entire ordeal, was surprised to discover that he was indeed carrying a book taken from Blecher's shop, and sources report that he handed the book over to authorities with a tearful apology for its rightful owner._

_Apparently unmoved by the apology, Blecher continues to protest that Mr Malfoy should be arrested. "That kid is a bad egg," Blecher responded to this reporter's question. "He even attacked one of my other customers while he was escaping! Just returning the book doesn't make it right. I want to know why that little snake isn't being prosecuted. Why am I the one being sued, eh?"_

_"Draco is certainly not a thief," Lucius Malfoy responded to reporters via firecall. "Our family has credit in every store in Diagon, so why would he steal anything? It was a simple mistake, and he has suffered most unjustly for it. I will be pursuing a civil suit against those responsible for this travesty, including Mr Blecher and the DMLE, to the utmost extent of the law."_

_An emergency session of the Wizengamot was convened after several dozen angry protestors and their owls and howlers swarmed Ministry of Magic premises. Legislation restricting the use of dementors in arresting children was signed into law in the early hours of this morning. Further legislation restricting the use of dementors in arresting adults for non-violent crimes is still under debate as of publication time._

Harry read the report of Draco's shock and terror with a certain amount of chagrin. Although automatically activated child-safe portkeys were rather expensive, and hence Harry had never owned one, he was aware of how they worked. They couldn't be activated voluntarily, but in case of injury, they would transport the bearer to a designated safe location. He hadn't realized, however, that mental trauma could also activate them. Draco's fear must have been quite extreme for the portkey's magic to have counted it as an injury.

Was it only the presence of the dementors that had so terrified Draco, or had the sight of them being brutally slaughtered by some unknown magic also played its part? Also, why hadn't the destruction of the dementors made it into the papers? Did Draco really not remember it? Had he perhaps portkeyed away much earlier than Harry realized? Or was the Ministry trying to hush it up?

"Anything worth reading?" James asked, peering over Harry's shoulder and startling him from his wandering thoughts.

"Not really," Harry lied.

James snorted, glancing over the article. "Malfoy's son! What a laugh."

Harry scowled at his father for the distinctly uncharitable remark. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that James' deep-seated enmity for the Malfoys extended even to children. Harry's father, taking no notice of the dark look, twirled his wand deftly, and the bacon flew from the pan onto their plates, where it joined the eggs and toast.

After they had both tucked into their food, James picked up the paper again and frowned at it. "Looks like Cissy's been up to her old tricks," he said with distaste.

It took Harry a moment to realize that James was referring to Narcissa. Harry hadn't known they had ever been on such intimate terms as to warrant nicknames, but they were cousins, after all. Not to mention that James had called her by a far worse term the last time they spoke of her.

"Tricks?" Harry inquired.

James smirked unpleasantly. "Shall I arm you with a bit of ammunition against that Malfoy kid?"

Some morally upright part of Harry wanted to tell James off for being so mean about a kid, but that part was quickly overwhelmed by the greedy majority of Harry that hungered to know anything and everything about the Malfoys—particularly the youngest one.

"Might as well," Harry drawled, feigning disinterest, with doubtful success.

"Well, when we were kids," James began, "we saw each other pretty often at family gatherings, since we're about the same age." He interspersed his story with hearty bites of breakfast, obviously enjoying himself. "That's how I know about it. You wouldn't believe it now, but back then she was as ugly as a one-eyed troll."

Harry glanced at him sceptically. He had seen Narcissa's picture in _Nature's Nobility_, and she was possessed of a remarkable beauty that her son had obviously inherited.

"Every now and then, one of the Blacks comes out like that. Probably all the inbreeding," James speculated. "Then one summer—I think it was the summer before she started Hogwarts—she went off on a tour of the continent with Aunt Cassiopeia. And when she came back, she—well, she looked like she does now. It wasn't natural."

That was interesting, but hardly objectionable. "So she got some work done. She wouldn't be the first one."

James huffed. "Nobody could change _that_ much just by going under the wand. Believe me, I've seen a witch or two who have. No. Even her natural hair colour changed, and that's no potion's work. When have you ever seen a Black with blonde hair?"

"So?" Harry asked. "What is it you think she did?"

James looked smug. "I reckon she did some kind of dark ritual. She was always sitting at the old folks' knees, drinking up their nonsense. Sacrificed a swan at the full moon, buried it in a crossroads—something like that. Maybe she ate a Veela's heart. How should I know? I never took up with that rubbish." He wrinkled his nose disdainfully.

"And now look!" He tapped the picture of Draco Malfoy. "She's gone and done it to her son, too. No way any natural born child of hers would come out looking like that without some dark magic in it somewhere."

Harry frowned, chewing his bacon thoughtfully. "Hrm," he murmured noncommittally.

James scoffed. "I see you don't believe me, but you just try and find any pictures of her from before she went to Hogwarts. You can't. They all disappeared. If that's not proof, I don't know what is. So if that Malfoy kid ever gives you any trouble, you just ask him if he got his work done at the same place his mum did. That ought to shut him up."

* * *

"Make sure you get some winter things, because you might not get another chance to go shopping until the holidays," James enjoined, counting off galleons into a small bag. "And don't give the Weasleys any trouble. You're under their rules while you're with them."

A few weeks had passed since Harry's encounter with Draco Malfoy, and now James was bundling Harry off with the Weasleys to get his school things and stay with them for the night before going on the train to Hogwarts the next day.

"You said that already," Harry replied with a roll of his eyes. "Look, can't I just go on my own?"

James looked annoyed. "I know Diagon _seems_ safe, but if you knew how many perverts and potions addicts I've booked there…"

"I can take care of myself," Harry told his father. James glanced up, and Harry met the man's chocolate brown eyes with his own pale sea-green ones.

James straightened, glancing at his son's gloved hands, and suddenly his eyes become those of a stranger.

"Yes," he agreed, "I suppose you can. But how would that look, if someone saw the Boy Who Lived"—he uttered the epithet with disdain—"wandering around on his own with no guardian?"

Harry shrugged lackadaisically, since he'd been doing just that all summer. "They only recognize me when I'm with you. _You're _the one whose picture's been in the papers all the time."

The press were too wary of James' hot-tempered litigation to print any close-ups of Harry. Even the picture of James carrying Harry into St Mungo's after the incident with the cultists had obscured Harry's face subtly, emphasizing James as the heroic figure instead. So Harry wasn't often recognized in public, unless someone caught sight of his scar.

James snorted. "And _you're_ the one who yelled at me for not getting you a coat. Do you want me to behave like a proper father or not?"

"That was ages ago!" Harry protested, flushing slightly at the memory.

Many years since, James had been tongue-lashed by the matron of Harry's day school for not providing Harry a winter coat. Of course Harry didn't need any such thing, in fact he relished the cold, but he had once tried to inspire some guilt in his father by throwing the incident in the man's face.

"I didn't need one anyway," Harry muttered petulantly.

James flashed a quicksilver grin and ruffled up his own hair, giving him that windblown, bed-head look that seemed to make sleazy women, and not a few men, salivate. "Turn-about is fair play."

Harry pouted, but on the inside, he was smiling, too. Although there was an ocean of troubles beneath the thin ice of their détente, the peace between them was solid enough to stand on. The fact that they could discuss that incident without screaming at each other was evidence of that.

"And now," James announced with a rather grand intonation. "It's time to carry on a little family tradition."

Harry made a puzzled face. James beamed impishly, and went into his bedroom. He returned carrying a dark, lacquered wooden box about the size of a loaf of bread.

"This, Harry my boy, is the secret of my success as the master prankster of all time at Hogwarts." His face darkened for a moment, remembering, perhaps, that two of his best friends, Peter and Sirius, had gone on to become Death Eaters. Then it brightened again, and he said with a roguish leer, "It's also how I got my reputation as such a stud."

"Dear gods," Harry spat, recoiling. "Whatever it is, I don't want it."

"Oh, really?"

James pressed several unmarked spots on the box, and the lid opened with a click. He drew out a long, shimmering piece of fabric that glittered like moonlight on water and was all but transparent. Harry gasped softly, realizing what it was. James threw the invisibility cloak over himself and disappeared. Then his head reappeared in mid-air, plastered with a shit-eating grin.

"Still not want it?"

Harry cleared his throat, which had gone dry. "No, ah—I think I'll take it after all."

"I thought you'd say that, somehow."

James handed over the cloak with aplomb, and Harry ran his hands reverently over the cloth. It was smooth and cool, more like water than fabric.

"What's it made of? Demiguise hair?"

"Hell if I know. Whatever it's made of, it's a masterpiece. It's been handed down in our family for generations, and it's never needed repairing. It can even repel minor jinxes and hexes, and it can't be summoned off you. It'll size itself to fit you, and I've never tripped over it even once."

Harry's brows shot up, impressed and intrigued. All those hours he'd spent perfecting invisibility, giving himself nosebleeds and headaches, and this cloak had been in the house, all the time.

"_Homenum Revelio _will see through it, though, and, uh, trust me"—James coughed embarrassedly—"Dumbledore knows about it."

"So you don't know where it came from?"

"See this seal?" James turned the box so that Harry could see an odd, geometric mark engraved on the lid. "That's the mark of the Peverell family. It was made by Ignotus Peverell. We're—well, _I'm_—descended from them, through the Potters."

Harry's face fell slightly. "It should stay in your family, then."

"You _are_ my family, Harry," James replied seriously.

Harry bit his lip, fingers fidgeting with the cloth. Then he tossed the cloak aside and gave his father an impulsive hug.

For an instant, the muscles in James' broad back tensed in surprise, and then he melted, wrapping Harry in the circle of his warm, strong arms. The small growth of stubble on his cheek rasped against Harry's forehead as the boy drank in the good, clean, and masculine scent of this quixotic man who stubbornly refused to stop being his father.


	3. The Wand-Crafter

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Notes: Thanks so much for all the faves and follows, and most especially the reviews. I think I edited this one half to death, so it had **better** read smoothly. I went back and forth on what sort of wand to give Harry, and this is what I eventually settled on. Also, this chapter sees the return of The Footnotes. Three in one sentence might be a record for me. The amount of research I do for this story is really absurd. Have I mentioned that I actually _went to Scotland_? Oh, and I think I may have lifted a few lines in this chapter from JKR, and even a couple from Robert Frost.

Let me know if you like it, please.

* * *

**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 3. THE WAND-CRAFTER ─┴─┬─┴─┬─**

Freezing, salty spray dappled the deck as the small ship pitched through the restless sea, and in the distance, the mist-shrouded island of Azkaban dwindled into the horizon. Despite the terrors he had suffered there, Harry felt that a part of himself still dwelt on the island, and that part would linger there until he returned for it.

"It will be good for you to be with other children," Bjorn offered, taking a drag on his pipe. His grizzled blonde hair was rimed with sea spray.

"I suppose," Harry replied listlessly.

Bjorn grinned, making the skin ruck up around the great white scar that bisected his face. "So you no longer deny that you _are _a child?"

Harry glared but did not protest. Bjorn chuckled.

"Be careful. Don't flash your mastery of the wild magic in the wrong faces. The southerners disdain it."

Harry sniffed. "I'm a southerner, too, you know."

"No. Not you. There's too much ice in your veins for that, I think."

Harry's understood that Bjorn was referring to his affinity for ice, but he deliberately took up the alternate meaning of the phrase. "I wish there _was _ice in my veins. Then I could stop dreaming about—everything. I'm so sick of nightmares."

"Ah, _fugleungen_," Bjorn answered gently, wrapping a burly arm around Harry's thin shoulders. "You've got to embrace the painful things in life. Treat your fears like brothers. Make allowances for them and try to understand them, so that you can rely on them."

Harry made a face. "You're talking nonsense again."

Bjorn smiled unperturbedly. "Well, well, maybe you'll understand someday. Come inside the cabin and have a cup of tea."

But Harry didn't want to go inside. He remained pensively watching his island shrink into the distance like a memory. If only all memories could be left behind so easily. When Bjorn returned, he accepted a cup of the man's strong brew, and distracted himself with some amusement at the sight of the rugged outdoorsman daintily pinching the embellished handle of his delicate china teacup.

"Have you ever met a god, Bjorn?"

"No. Nor would I wish to."

"Why? You worship the Norse gods, don't you?"

Bjorn paused. "I honour them," he said. Harry was not sure if that was agreement or not. "But the eyes of men are not made to look on gods. Perhaps the wizards of old could do so."

Harry had not told Bjorn, yet, of seeing the goddess in the cavern beneath the sea. He had not told anyone. It was not a thing that could be fitted into any words he knew. He felt different—changed—somehow, by having seen her. His version of the world had been false, and now he struggled amidst a sea of ignorance and confusion. It was baffling and terrifying that such beings should exist.

He did not wish to think of her, and yet, like a moth to a light, Harry's thoughts always returned to the goddess, and to the inscrutable smile of Electra Black. And, just like those light-dazzled insects whose desiccated bodies littered the bottoms of torch sconces, he could not discern whether the light he followed was the moon that would guide him true, or a flame that would burn him up. So he remained, circling in darkness, trapped in her orbit.

"And souls?" Harry asked. "You believe in those, don't you?"

Bjorn shrugged. "Our souls pass from body to body, so they say, like metal being poured from one crucible to another."

"What about the gods?" Harry persisted. "They must have souls, too. But they don't have bodies, I suppose. How does that work?"

Bjorn looked curious, as though he wanted to ask something, but he did not. Harry was grateful. That was one of the things he liked best about the gruff man—his ability to refrain from prying. It was not that Bjorn was not interested, Harry supposed, merely that he did not mind waiting to find out things.

"In the old stories, the gods could inhabit bodies temporarily¹. The All-Father², for example, when he hung on Yggdrasil³ for nine days and nights⁴."

Harry made a thoughtful noise.

"But if you want to know how a soul can exist without a body, I suppose you'll have to ask the disembodied souls at your school. I've heard that place is cluttered with them."

Harry straightened, his eyes wide. "What? I've never heard that."

The sun-etched lines at the corners of Bjorn's eyes crinkled with pleasure. "They're called ghosts, I believe."

* * *

¹ I do not think this concept existed in Norse mythology, but it is a somewhat common idea. For example, in Hinduism, Krishna was said to be the eighth avatar of Vishnu, and in Christianity, Jesus was said to be the incarnation of the god of Abraham.

² The All-Father is a kenning (poetic phrase) for Odin, the king of the Norse gods

³ Yggdrasil is the great world tree or tree of life in Norse mythology which connects the heavens, the earth, and the underworld(s). It is usually thought to be an ash, but might have been an oak or a yew.

⁴ In Norse mythology, Odin discovered runes and magic by hanging himself from Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his own spear, as a sacrifice to himself

* * *

"Now then," Molly Weasley announced in her usual ringing tone, "Fred, George, and Ron will come with me to Flourish and Blotts to get everyone's books."

Harry stood amidst a flock of boys with flaming red hair, smack in the middle of Diagon Alley, while the Weasley matriarch issued her marching orders. He felt a bit like a black weasel that had sneaked into a coop of ginger chickens, and he was doing his best, as ever, to avoid being noticed. This was made somewhat difficult, however, by Mrs Weasley. The street was crowded with people doing last-minute school shopping, but the stout witch stood against the stream of irritated passers-by like the solid prow of a boat, parting the waters around her with sheer force of will. Harry supposed that she did not even notice she was doing so.

"Percy and Harry go to Madam Malkin's to pick up Percy's new robes, and then to Ollivander's to get Harry's wand," Mrs Weasley continued.

Harry tried not to frown too obviously, but inwardly he was vexed that he wouldn't be able to speak to the wand-crafter alone. He should have expected it, of course; Mrs Weasley was a great deal better at keeping track of her charges than Harry's father was.

"How come only Percy gets new robes?" Ron complained, scowling at his older brother.

"Because _Percy _is a _prefect_," Mrs Weasley answered with obvious pride.

At the mention of Percy's achievement, the twins, Fred and George, began a silent pantomime of hanging themselves, complete with bulging eyes and lolling tongues. Ron and Harry both snickered; then immediately shut up and regarded each other with fierce suspicion.

"Wanker," Ron muttered.

Fred flicked Ron on the nose, and then danced away from Ron's blustering counterattack. Harry simply sighed.

The Weasleys were all right, on the whole, even if they were a bit over-bearing and credulous. James had been good friends with Arthur since their days fighting the Death Eaters together, and between that and growing up in the same village, Harry knew the family quite well. Molly did have an unpleasant tendency to try to mother Harry, and Arthur did sometimes try to evangelize Harry with the Gospel of Dumbledore when James was out of earshot, but the couple had always been kind to Harry, despite their occasional discomfort with his oddness.

The Weasley children, on the other hand, were a mixed bag. To start with, they had always interacted with each other in the most alarming fashion: more like wild animals competing for dominance than civilized humans. When Fred and George weren't dosing their siblings with experimental potions, Charlie and Bill were smacking bludgers at their heads, or Ginny and Ron were playing vicious pranks on them. Impromptu wrestling matches could break out at any moment, and any move that didn't cause permanent injury was considered fair game.

Bill and Charlie, being the oldest, were on the top of the heap. The twins came just after, due to their teamwork advantage. Next was Percy, who despite rarely initiating a contest could defend himself ably, then Ginny, the queen sneak, and finally Ron, the hothead. Because of her age, Ginny had the least physical and magical strength, but she was able to maintain a slight lead on Ron by employing stealth and subterfuge, and by playing ruthlessly on Molly's favour of her. Ron, on the other hand, had a decent knack for strategy, but he was too hot-tempered to follow through with any coolly calculated plots.

Despite bellowing their heads off whenever they had to drag one of their brood to Mungo's, Molly and Arthur seemed to find this battle royale amongst their litter of children quite natural—even charming. Perhaps it was because Harry was an only child, but he considered it quite bizarre, not to mention dangerous. When he was younger, Harry had sometimes been included in the family blood sport, but most of the Weasleys had quickly learned that Harry had a tendency to react quite badly to surprises. There had not been a serious attempt from the older siblings in years, not since the time he had ruined half their Quidditch set and given the twins frostbite.

Ron and Ginny, on the other hand, had never ceased their campaign against Harry, and although it might have begun as good-natured competition, it had warped over the years into genuine animosity. Harry had concocted any number of theories about why they hated him, but he had given up wasting time on these thoughts long ago. For whatever reason, the two youngest Weasleys, Ron and Ginny, simply loathed him, and that was that. The perpetually looming threat of their next confrontation was a constant stress when he was with the Weasleys.

"Fred! Stop that this instant!"

Fred had Ron in a headlock and appeared to be choking him, but it was Mrs Weasley's strident tone which really drew the attention of passers-by.

"And then Percy and Harry will meet us in the book shop after," Mrs Weasley resumed. "All right, everyone, move out!"

* * *

"There now, have a look at yourself in the mirror," the shop assistant directed Percy when she had finished taking in his robes. The mirror in question showered compliments on Percy, and the older boy began to stand up a bit straighter and puff out his chest.

Harry, slouched against the wall nearby, watched without much interest, until he saw Percy reach into his pocket and pull out a certain shiny badge. Harry hid his mirth behind his fist as Percy pinned the badge to his robes to see how it looked with them. Suddenly Percy noticed Harry watching him, and hastily stuffed the badge back into his pocket with a blush and a muttered excuse.

His behaviour gave Harry an idea. As they were walking to Ollivander's, he waited until Percy was distracted, and then, with a deft bit of magic, Harry slipped the prefect badge from Percy's pocket and tossed it into a nearby drainage grate. He felt a slight pang of guilt, but even if the badge was Percy's treasure, it wasn't irreplaceable. All that remained now was to hope that Percy wouldn't miss it until they had reached Ollivander's.

* * *

"Haven't been in here since I got my own wand," Percy exclaimed nostalgically, as a bell at the back of the shop dinged to announce their entrance.

The wand-crafter's shop was cramped, dim, and undecorated, with the only feature of interest the floor-to-ceiling stacks of dusty wand boxes. The smell was overwhelming. Mainly it was pipe-smoke, but underneath that were the medicinal aromas of exotic woods—juniper, cedar, birch—and finally, most faintly of all, the stormy, crackling odour of magic itself. Harry felt a little thrill of excitement in spite of his acquired disdain for Ministry-approved magic.

A discreet cough sounded from a doorway in the dusty shadows at the end of the narrow front room, and an old man with white hair and wide, silvery eyes shuffled forward. His gaze passed Percy without much interest, and then roamed over Harry at length, darting from his eyes to his forehead to his left hand, the palm of which was hidden by Harry's fingerless glove. Harry tensed at this unwelcome inspection.

"Mr Weasley," Ollivander intoned, turning to Percy. "Nine inches, spruce, a bit springy. Dragon heartstring, wasn't it?"

Percy beamed with pleasure at being remembered. "It was indeed, sir. I have it here." He reached into his pocket to pull out his wand, but rather than producing the wand in question, he instead cried out in dismay.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked with carefully feigned innocence.

"My badge, it's gone!"

"You had it in Madam Malkin's," Harry reminded him.

"Yes, I guess I dropped it along the way—probably when those witches bumped into us."

"I suppose you'd better go and look for it then."

"But your wand—"

"I'll stay here. You'd better hurry; someone might kick it into a grate."

Percy looked horrified at the thought and he rushed out of the shop without any further protestation. Harry lips twitched upward with restrained satisfaction. When he turned back to Ollivander, he found that the small man had moved closer to him and was now scrutinizing him from an uncomfortably short distance away. Harry was too proud to back up, however, so he merely glared to signal his displeasure.

"You have your mother's eyes, Mr Potter," the old man said, whipping out a tape measure and setting it to measure Harry. Whether this remarked referred to the colour of his eyes or to their expression, he did not know. "It seems just yesterday she was in here, buying her first wand. Willow, as I recall. And James Potter's was mahogany."

Harry frowned at the way the wand-crafter had phrased that—_James Potter_ instead of _your father_. The man reminded him uncomfortably of Luna.

"But I don't think willow will do for you. No, nor mahogany. Perhaps…"

Ollivander retrieved the tape measure and jotted down a few figures, tapping the end of his pencil against his lips thoughtfully.

"Mr Ollivander," Harry put in cautiously, as he sensed an opening. Wandlore was a mysterious and secretive discipline, passed down only from master to apprentice, and so Harry had many questions he would like answered. He had to begin slowly, however. "Is it possible to do magic with things other than wands?"

The wand-crafter peered at Harry curiously through the gloom of the shop. Then he turned to the shelves that lined the walls and began taking down boxes and opening them, muttering to himself, and then putting them back. To all appearances, he had forgotten the question, but after a time, he began to speak.

"I am known as a wand-crafter," Ollivander started, with an air of one beginning a lecture, "but of course wands aren't the only instruments that can amplify and direct a wizard's magic. Such an instrument, when it is not a wand, is generally called a focus, since it focuses the magic, you see."

Harry made a vague noise of interest, loath to interrupt the man's ramblings. He was glad he had gotten rid of his minder. Percy was a bit of a know-it-all, and would doubtless have questioned Ollivander closely or even tried to contradict him. Besides, Harry did not want anyone to suspect that he was interested in the topic of focuses.

"In the days of Merlin, for example, it was customary to use a staff as a focus. The use of wands began amongst the Germanic peoples¹, who brought wandlore to Britain. Although wands are nearly ubiquitous here, there are still many parts of the world—even some not so far from here—where they have never been favoured."

Ollivander handed Harry a wand to try, but snatched it back with a darting, lizard-like speed almost before Harry had a chance to touch it.

"After the terrible battles fought between wizards and witches in the days of Merlin, it became more popular to wear one's focus against one's flesh. That way, you see, one is always prepared to fight. Jewellery is well-suited for the purpose."

Ollivander help up his hand and waggled the fingers, showing off a golden ring with an enormous ruby. Harry's eyes widened.

"A ritual was later developed that went a step further. It wove the focus into the flesh itself—the ultimate way to prevent being disarmed."

Harry shifted slightly, listening even more intently. Could Ollivander have guessed that this was precisely the topic Harry wanted to discuss? Had he guessed more than that?

"Being inside the body also allows for greater amplification and more precise control than a normal focus. They are called ritual focuses because people mainly remember the ritual, I suppose. It had rather disastrous results at times. In fact, during the eighteenth century, the Ministry deemed it too dangerous to perform, and it was banned."

The man handed Harry another wand to try. It felt like nothing more than a stick of kindling. There was nothing like that great upswelling of power that he had felt when the sea had seized him and driven the jagged branch of coral through his flesh. Harry handed it back wordlessly.

"Of course, since there were already so many people who had ritual focuses, it remained legal to possess one. Only the ritual itself was banned, and a wizard would have to be caught in the act to be prosecuted, so the law was mainly symbolic. But the popularity fell off nonetheless. I doubt whether any but the oldest families would even recognize a ritual focus now, and the precise procedure for performing the ritual has been lost for centuries."

Ollivander paused to peer at Harry curiously through the gloom. Harry returned the stare with a hint of challenge. The white-haired man blinked and moved away, rummaging through the boxes of wands once more.

"I do not myself possess one, but I have given a great deal of thought to the matter, and it is my opinion that the ritual itself is not dangerous at all. You see, Mr Potter, it is the wand that chooses the wizard, not the other way around. And that is not only true of wands. If one were to try to force a focus to meld with a wizard whom it did not wish to serve, well… Let's simply say that there were a great many one-armed wizards in the middle ages. Most people tried to embed their focus into their wand hand, you see. Sometimes the limb exploded at once, and other times it withered or rotted away slowly." Ollivander seemed grotesquely fascinated by the thought.

"Despite the danger, the forehead was also a popular location. Close to the seat of magic, you see? It is even said that Rowena Ravenclaw had a black diamond inside one of her eyes, yes, and the claws of ravens in her fingertips. A fanciful tale, that, on account of her name, I am sure. After all, ravens have no magical properties. But then again…certain people…magical affinities…"

The wand-crafter lapsed into muttering under his breath once more. After a moment, he spoke more loudly. "I wonder, now—yes, why not?" He scuttled away and returned with a new box. "Holly and phoenix feather, unusual combination, eleven inches, nice and supple." He seemed to be watching Harry unusually closely.

Harry reached for the wand slowly, and this time, rather than feeling nothing but a dry stick of wood, he felt a queer warmth that suffused his hand. He rolled the spindle of holly between his fingertips, and the warmth grew stronger, becoming heat. It felt familiar, somehow. What was it like? The warmth of his dove patronus, perched on his hand? No—that wasn't quite right. It was more like the heat of James' patronus, when it had rained down blows upon him, leaving him with the silvery crescent-shaped scars that decorated his forearms.

No sooner had Harry remembered that heat than a surge of arctic cold arose within him, dousing the heat from the wand, and he heard a sharp crack that he recognized from the days when he had played in the woods around Ottery-St. Catchpole and had loosed his powers on the trees there.

Harry opened his hand, and the wand came apart within it. The wood lay in splinters. "Sorry!" Harry gasped. "I didn't—that is, it wasn't my intention…"

Ollivander looked more intrigued than angry, however. "Do not trouble yourself, Mr Potter. I had a notion that might happen." He poked at the tattered pieces of fiery-golden feather and then vanished the whole mess with a wave of his wand.

Then he studied Harry thoughtfully. "I think, perhaps, phoenix feathers do not suit your magic. They are spirits of fire, you see. It is curious, though… I remember every wand I've ever made, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather was in that wand, gave another feather—just one other. It is very curious indeed that the brother of this wand, which your magic destroyed, was also destroyed by another young man's magic, many years ago."

Ollivander's eyes went misty, gazing into the past. "Like you, he was a difficult customer, with a strange, unfriendly sort of magic. It seemed to me to have a curiously _cold _quality. Yes, and a sort of hollowness, too, as though it were missing something. I must confess, Mr Potter, that when I felt your magic today, and how similar it is to that young man's, I wondered if I could reproduce the same result."

Harry's stomach sank at Ollivander's description of his magic. He did not like to be reminded that he was missing something vital—half his soul, in fact—though Ollivander, even with his uncanny knowledge of things unsaid, could not possibly know that.

The old man glanced at Harry's forehead. "How curious that your magic should be so like the magic that gave you that scar."

Harry drew in his breath sharply. It was not the first time he had been compared to his mother's murderer, and it was not pleasant. And yet, Voldemort had done great things, after all. Terrible, yes, but great.

"The problem is this, Mr Potter," Ollivander went on calmly, as though he had only made some idle remark on the weather. "When one's magic is undeveloped, unformed, it is easy to find a wand that will suit. As one grows, one's wand and one's magic grow together, each shaping the other. The wands in this shop are intended for beginners, and in particular the sort of wizards who will never do much more than Ministry-approved spells. When one's magic is already formed, however, with a wild and strong will of its own, it will never accept these sorts of wands."

"Are you saying you can't sell me a wand?" Harry asked slowly.

Ollivander made a helpless gesture. "It doesn't often happen. There have only been a handful of such cases over my many years in business."

"What am I supposed to do, then?" Harry asked despairingly. How could he possibly tell his father that he had failed at finding a wand when even idiots like Ron Weasley could do it?

"You might try another wand-crafter. Gregorovitch, perhaps…" The suggestion seemed to pain Ollivander. "But I'm afraid the situation would be much the same. No. I will do for you what I did for that other young man, so long ago."

He looked at Harry's forehead again, with those penetrating silver eyes, and it seemed as though he could see right through the scrim of fringe that hid Harry's scar.

"Has anyone ever told you, Mr Potter, that your scar bears a curious resemblance to a rune?"

"_Eihwaz_," Harry muttered, clenching his left hand a little, where the same rune was engraved on his coral.

"Yes. The rune of life and death, but its literal meaning is the yew-tree. The Tree of Life was a yew, some say, or perhaps an ash, or an oak, or all three at once. Up and down such a tree, messages passed between the living and the dead, between men and gods."

Ollivander was rummaging around in a large box on a high shelf now. It sounded as though it were filled with loose wands.

"The yew is poisonous, and perhaps that's why it's associated with death², but it can live for thousands of years, and so it is also a symbol of immortality. Its roots are its most extraordinary feature. They propagate underground and re-emerge as new trunks which twine together with the old, and so its strongest symbolism, perhaps, is that of rebirth."

The wand-crafter returned, and presented a length of pale, smooth, and twisted wood to Harry.

"Eleven and a half inches, yew. A fine wand-tree that grows in one of the older wizarding cemeteries."

Harry swished the wand through the air, but he felt nothing from it.

"It's not a wand, I'm afraid; it only looks like one. No core, you see. This is what I gave _him_, back then, and I'll tell you the same thing I told him. I haven't given this advice to many. The Ministry, you understand?"

Ollivander looked at Harry and saw that he did understand.

"Go to Hogwarts, and wave this stick around the way they tell you to, and say the words the way they say them. But find your own magic. Wherever it might be—find it for yourself." Ollivander paused. "I didn't know, then, of course, what great and terrible deeds would be wrought by his magic. Perhaps you would rather I had never given him that advice. But it was inevitable, Mr Potter. Magic will out. It cannot be contained."

* * *

¹ This does appear to be the case, although the matter is far from clear. Other mythologies and religions, including Ancient Egypt and Greece, had magical sceptres or staves such as the caduceus, but the small wooden wand as popularly understood does seem to come from Germanic and Norse paganism. Wands might have arisen as a smaller version of staves, which themselves can be anything from weapons to sceptres to walking aids, or they might have arisen from magical spindles (rods for spinning thread) such the Frigg and the Norns are often depicted with.

² I've read a great deal on the matter, but no one seems to really know why yews are associated with death. There are quite a lot of them growing in graveyards in Britain, but apparently no one knows the reason for that, either.


	4. Spite and Sympathy

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

* * *

**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 4. SPITE AND SYMPATHY ─┴─┬─┴─┬─**

Beneath the arched glass roof of King's Cross Station, the voices of the crowd blended into a dull roar like roiling surf, punctuated only by the squealing brakes of the trains and the incessant drone of the disembodied female voice announcing arrivals and departures. Everywhere Harry looked were muggles. Muggles carrying briefcases, muggles wearing high heels and lipstick, muggles sipping coffee from steaming paper cups, muggles listening to cassette players, muggles reading newspapers, muggles sleeping sitting up on benches, muggles talking into pay phones, muggles dashing to catch their trains. Muggles, muggles muggles—Harry had never seen so many of them in one place. He had the sense that it would be very easy to be swept up into the crowd like a bit of flotsam on the tide and carried away to absolutely anywhere, never to be found again. At the moment, it was an appealing thought. He had a sort of pit in his stomach at the thought of where his own train would take him.

"Come along, Harry dear," Mrs Weasley chivvied him as they reached the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10.

With one last, lingering look over his shoulder, Harry stowed his thoughts of running away to live with the muggles. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped through the portal to Platform 9¾.

The platform was bustling with every bit as much activity on the wizarding side as on the muggle one, but here the sounds were more familiar—the screeches and hoots of owls, the cracks of apparition, the mewing of kneazles, the zings and pops of magic of every kind. All around him, children were bidding farewell to their parents. Some were clinging, and others trying to escape; some sulking, and others crying. Mrs Weasley, too, began to lavish her children with last-minute admonishments and affection. Harry felt suddenly very alone, and he moved purposefully to board the train before he could think about that any more.

Just as his foot touched the first step, however, his shoulder was roughly seized from behind, and Harry's instincts reacted before he even had time to think. A surge of half-formed magic blasted the assailant away from him, and Harry whirled, left palm raised, only to gasp with shock and remorse. It was unusual for anyone to sneak up him, since he could sense souls in any direction, but the platform was crowded, and he hadn't been paying attention.

"Ergh, you really knocked the wind out of me," James wheezed, climbing to his feet. "And here I thought you'd be pleased to see me!"

"Sorry," Harry said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to; you just startled me."

They shifted to the side to make way for others boarding the train, and James eyed his son thoughtfully. Then he shrugged and ruffled his own hair up with one of those bright, charming grins that made him look more like the young, handsome Quidditch star who had been Head Boy at Hogwarts than the bitter, defeated drunk who had washed up on the shores of Azkaban.

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about any bullies sneaking up on you in dark corridors," James remarked with a laugh.

Harry winced a little. "What are you doing here?" He wanted to be pleased, but he had more memories of his father suddenly appearing when things had gone terribly wrong than he did of him appearing when things were all right.

"I can hardly let my son go off to Hogwarts for the first time all by himself, now can I? The prison can run itself for a few hours."

Harry relaxed, and gave a tremulous smile. "Thanks," he murmured, in the direction of his father's shoes.

James nodded. There was an awkward pause then, as neither father nor son seemed to know how they were meant to proceed. James looked around at the other families with a hint of panic.

"Er, I think I'm supposed to give you some kind of fatherly advice now," he said at last, "like 'don't eat too many sweets on the train' or 'don't get detention on the first day' or 'don't make friends with future Death Eaters', but, well, I did all those myself, so…"

"How about 'don't attempt murder until your second year'?" a dark, low, and silken voice asked in a snide tone.

James' face reddened with anger, and his spun around with a fierce glare. "Damn it, Severus, can't you see I'm having a moment here! Must you stick your oily nose into every pie?"

Harry's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the man behind his father's shoulder. He recognized Severus Snape from his photograph in _Hogwarts, A History_. The man had a distinctive, if not exactly attractive, face, with a hawk-like beak of a nose and dark, brooding eyes. His straight black hair was long enough to brush his shoulders, and although it did not seem to have been washed, his clothes, on the other hand, were impeccably clean, well-tailored, and even rather stylish. He was dressed all in black, with rows of silver buttons up his shirt and tall, sturdy leather boots more suited to duelling than to teaching.

Snape was a world-renowned master of potions, a noted duellist, and an acquitted Death Eater, and yet, for some reason, it was always the fact of his being James' boyhood rival that people mentioned to Harry, as though that were the role which, more than any other, served to define the man.

"You'd know a great deal more about nosing around in _pies_ than me, Potter," Snape drawled in reply. There was a kind of cruel and vindictive glee in his voice, and his eyes glittered voraciously. Harry thought that Snape was enjoying himself very much.

The professor's remark must have had some significance that escaped Harry, because a vein in James' forehead began to bulge ominously, and he fairly spat at the other man. "Oh, yes, that's right, I'd forgotten you like to keep your nose clean. But we all know you oil it every night by yourself—probably with a picture of your mother to keep you company and a hanky to cry into afterwards!"

Harry frowned, trying to puzzle out what exactly they were talking about. It sounded like sex stuff, but surely two grown men wouldn't be trading such crude insults in the middle of a crowd of children, not to mention in front of Harry himself.

"At least I don't go around wiping sticky, leftover crumbs on everyone else's plates, including my _wife's_," Snape snapped back.

James had his wand out and jabbing into the underside of Snape's jaw before Harry could so much as blink. "Don't you ever—don't you _ever_—" There was a sort of murderous light in his eyes that Harry had never seen before, not even during their worst screaming rows.

"All righ' there, lads?" a deep and booming voice asked. Harry recognized this face as well, what little of it he could see behind the wild, scraggly bush of beard and hair. The half-man, half-giant seemed even larger than Harry had heard, especially when compared to his own small stature.

"Hagrid," James said, turning away with a hint of relief. "Yes, we were just—just—"

"Catching up." Snape's tone dripped with acid, but even so, Harry detected a hint of sweet savour.

"We best be getting on then, eh?"

"Are you riding the train, Hagrid?" James inquired. He still looked a bit shaken by the encounter with Snape, but he was doing his best to hide it.

"Aye. Dumbledore's orders. Bringin' 'im summat special-like." Hagrid patted his coat pocket. He suddenly looked chagrined. "Oops. Wasn't supposed ter tell yeh that."

A mixture of exasperation and fondness crossed James' face, finally clearing away the last of his fury at Snape.

"Oh! An' who's this, then?" Hagrid asked, bending down to peer at Harry, who was still standing a little behind his father.

"Ah, yes, our new celebrity," Snape remarked with a sneer, turning his gaze to Harry for the first time. His eyes were black and fathomless as the ocean depths.

"What? Not little 'arry Potter?" Hagrid exclaimed.

"The great and miraculous _Boy Who Lived_."

Snape's disdain for the title must have been intended as an insult, but Harry, who was usually given to squirming uncomfortably whenever he heard the epithet, found himself, to his surprise, more amused than offended. He smiled slightly and stepped out from behind his father.

"You sound just like my dad when you say it like that," he remarked with a slight smile.

Snape's head went back a little, and he narrowed his eyes at James. The ex-Auror simply folded his arms and said nothing.

"What, not going to defend your spawn from the big, bad potions master?" Snape scoffed.

In truth, Harry was wondering the same thing. After all, James had practically gone apoplectic when Snape had so much as alluded to Lily.

"I think you'll find my son can defend himself," James answered coolly, and with supreme confidence.

It was as though the clouds had parted, and the sun had beamed down on Harry, gracing him with radiance. Harry grinned, and his eyes fluttered shut briefly. When he looked up at James, however, he found that the approval he so longed to see was tempered with something else. What was it? Resignation? Melancholy? A tinge of fear? Perhaps all these things, and something more, something hidden in the deep, dark recesses of James' heart, that place he had barricaded for so many years.

"After all, he's Lily's son, too," James said quietly, stroking Harry's hair fondly.

Harry glanced up at Snape and saw the echo of James' expression. Only a split second, and then it was gone with a swirl of black robes and one last taunt—"Don't think that'll stop me hanging him by his toes if he gets up to anything."

"I best be getting on meself," Hagrid rumbled. "Good seein' yeh, James, an' little Harry. Yeh'll have to come visit me at Hogwarts. Got me own cottage, down by the forest."

Harry nodded absently as the gigantic man left. The platform was practically empty now, except for a few doting parents who lingered near their children's windows. James knelt down for a parting hug.

"Be good," he said, clasping Harry's shoulders. "That is—oh, bloody hell, just don't get expelled, all right?"

Harry nodded. Behind him, the train whistled, giving off a great billow of steam, and began to inch forward. Harry jogged alongside it and leapt nimbly onto the nearest set of stairs. By the time he looked back, his father was already out of sight.

* * *

Harry was distracted as he wandered up the central aisle of the train car, thinking over all that had happened on the platform and parsing each moment for its significance. He had almost forgotten that he was supposed to be looking for a compartment, when one of the sliding doors he had just passed banged open, and a freckly face poked out.

"What's the matter, Potter, won't anyone let you sit with them?" Ron asked in a mockery of kindly concern. "You're welcome to join us," he offered sarcastically.

Harry glared briefly and began walking again, but then he stopped and looked back thoughtfully. Ron quickly hid something that he had apparently been about to chuck at the dark-haired boy. Harry did an about face, marched back to Ron's compartment, and entered. The look on the ginger's face was rather amusing. He obviously hadn't expected Harry to take him up on his offer.

The only other person in the compartment was Neville, who greeted Harry warmly. Harry was a bit surprised, and quite pleased, to find that Neville did not immediately begin to sweat and go grey-faced in his presence. The plump boy had always been badly affected by Harry's latent dementor-like aura, but perhaps Harry had finally been able to contain it enough for Neville to bear it.

"Hullo, Harry," Neville said, beaming. "This is Trevor." He held up a fat, warty brown toad, which croaked at Harry.

"Pleased to meet you, Trevor," Harry replied absently. "Will you be all right if I sit with you?" he asked Neville seriously.

Neville nodded. "I've got your Christmas present here, see?" He held up his hand, displaying the ring which Remus had once given Harry for Christmas and which Harry had regifted to Neville.

So that was the reason. The ring was enchanted to protect the wearer somewhat from a dementor's icy, soul-sucking aura, but it had never occurred to Harry that it could also be used to shield a person from—well, from Harry.

"That's great," Harry said, trying not to feel or sound disappointed.

"What is it?" Ron asked rudely, torn between scowling at Harry and peering curiously at Neville's ring.

"Er," Neville hedged. "It's a ring that—that helps me—"

"Helps him remember things," Harry invented easily. "It glows when he's forgotten something."

Ron snorted. "Lame. Just like you, Potter."

Neville frowned at Ron but didn't say anything.

Harry sighed. "I want to talk to you, Ron. That's why I came in here. Can you be serious for five minutes?"

Ron eyed him suspiciously and folded his arms. Harry took that for assent.

"Look, I don't know why you don't like me, and I don't really care. I want to wipe the slate clean. Start over. Let bygones be bygones, all that. Let's agree to stop quarrelling. I'm not saying we have to be friends, but let's make a truce. Deal?" Harry stuck his hand out to shake on it.

Ron looked at Harry's hand with disgust, as if it were an insect that wanted to crawl on him.

"I'll tell you why I don't like you, Potter," he answered readily. "You're a freak. Playing with dead animals and snakes—bet you _loved_ it on Azkaban, didn't you? Hanging 'round with a bunch of dementors and psychopaths."

Harry felt the blood drain from his face.

"I read in the paper that you'd been attacked by a bunch of lunatics," Ron continued, in a spiteful, malicious tone, "but I don't believe a word of it. You were messing around down there where they keep the dead bodies, weren't you?"

It was true, every word, and nothing but the truth could have wounded him so deeply.

"That's where you belong, Potter, locked up in some crypt where you can't hurt anyone. I wouldn't make a truce with you if you paid me a thousand galleons. And I won't stop hounding you until you do the rest of us a favour and slither back into whatever slimy pit you crawled out of in the first place!"

Harry turned his head and looked out the window, breathing hard and fighting the boiling urge to leap at Ron and give him a taste of his darkness. When he looked back, his gaze was flat and his tone taut.

"You're right," he admitted. "I did hang out with dementors and psychopaths on Azkaban." Ron looked shocked and even a little frightened. Neville, too, had gone very pale. "They taught me things."

Ron fumbled for his wand and pointed it at Harry with a trembling hand. Harry sneered at the pathetic gesture. Suddenly he felt Lady moving. She had been draped around Harry's shoulders under his robes for so long that he'd almost forgotten she was there.

"I sssmell a rat," she hissed, emerging from Harry's sleeve and slithering across the compartment, heading for Ron's pet rat, Scabbers, which squeaked and squirmed frantically in the boy's pocket at the appearance of the predator.

Ron must have thought she was going after him, because he shrieked, scrabbling for the door, and slammed it behind him so hard that it bounced off the jamb. Harry laughed, more from relief at the ending of the awful encounter than at Ron's fear. He stroked Lady fondly and then slipped her back under his shirt.

"Hungry," she moaned.

Harry didn't answer, since Neville was still present. He looked over at the other boy finally, and found him grey-faced and shaking despite the blazing light of the ring's patronus magic. Harry tried to clamp down on his aura, but it was roiling like the sea at storm.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Maybe you should go."

Neville seemed determined to stay, however. "I'll talk to Ron," he told Harry. "He's not so bad, really…"

Harry scoffed and turned his face to the window, where fields of yellow flowers were rolling by, dappled by the sun. "Don't bother. He's made up his mind about me. Besides, he's right. I am a freak."

"Just because you're a little—a little—_unusual_," Neville managed, "doesn't make you evil. You saved my life once. I haven't forgotten that."

Harry smiled wanly. "You're a good person, Neville."

Neville grinned. The colour was returning to his face. "I've got some crickets here, for Trevor, if Lady's hungry."

Harry grinned back. It meant more to him than Neville would ever know, for him to treat Harry's snake like an ordinary familiar, and not irrefutable proof of Harry's innate darkness.

* * *

Neville and Harry had just gotten around to the topic of Hogwarts houses, when someone yanked their compartment door open and burst inside, then slammed the door shut and dove under Neville's bench, tucking his arms and legs in so as to make himself as small as possible. It was Draco Malfoy. Harry only caught a glimpse of wild but determined grey eyes and flying platinum hair before the boy was hidden.

Harry and Neville stared at each other in astonishment, but before they had a chance to say anything, someone else opened the door. Two beefy boys hulked in the doorway and peered around the compartment.

"Has anyone come past here?" one asked. He had beady eyes and a rather unpleasant expression.

"No," Harry answered, after exchanging another look with Neville.

"Right, well, if you see Draco Malfoy, tell him we're looking for him," the other said, sliding the door shut.

When the boys had gone, Draco crawled out from under Neville's bench and sat against the door, out of line of sight from the corridor. His hair, strewn with cobwebs, was sticking up wildly in every direction, and he was garbed just as oddly today as he had been the first time Harry had met him. He was wearing grey muggle-style trousers and a threadbare black and white striped jumper with holes in the elbows. Once again, however, his expensive dragon-hide boots spoiled the thrift store effect. He was wearing them in a slipshod fashion, however, unlaced and hanging half-open, with his trousers stuffed untidily inside. Somehow or other he managed to make that look stylish.

"Hi, Neville," Draco said, and then turned to Harry. "Thanks, erm—I don't think I know—" Then, abruptly, the light of horrified recognition dawned in his eyes. "You!" he shouted. "You're that do-good wanker that tried to stop me lifting that book the other day! Thanks a lot, I nearly got killed because of you."

Harry's mouth fell open in astonishment. "I wasn't trying to stop you stealing it, you bloody fool," he snapped. "I was _trying _to tell you there was a charm on it that would set off the alarms. It's not _my _fault you can't even shoplift properly. You should have just chucked it out the window and then gone outside to retrieve it."

The anger vanished with startling rapidity from Draco's face, replaced by surprise and interest, and Harry was struck again by what a very lovely face it was, even as he remembered James' odd story about Narcissa's mysterious transformation.

"Do you steal things often?" Draco asked avidly.

"Erm," Harry said awkwardly, looking over at Neville for help. Neville shrugged. "Who were those boys just now, anyway? Were they going to beat you up?"

"I'll beat them up if they come in here again," Draco answered with an unpersuasive pout.

"Crabbe and Goyle," Neville told Harry. "They're, er, sort of like Draco's bodyguards."

Harry hadn't realized that Neville had more than a passing acquaintance with the blonde boy, but the wizarding community was quite small, so it wasn't very surprising.

"My father pays them to follow me around and keep me out of trouble," Draco said peevishly. "Between the two of them, they've got all the bulk of a pile of bricks, and nearly as much brains."

Harry chuckled. "So you'd given them the shuffle, that day in the Alley?" Draco nodded, looking troubled. Harry continued cautiously, "And you're all right? I read in the paper about what happened afterwards."

Draco shivered and rubbed his arms, which had broken into gooseflesh. "Yeah. Got chased by a couple of dementors and some mad dark wizard, but I'm all right. Thank the gods I had my portkey."

"Dark wizard?" Neville asked curiously. "That wasn't in the paper, was it?"

Draco clapped his hand over his mouth. "Father told me not to tell anyone that part. You won't say anything, will you? Neville?" He made puppy-dog eyes at Neville.

"Of course not," Neville answered easily.

Draco then turned his limpid grey eyes beseechingly on Harry. They were impossible to resist. "Erm—I still don't know your name," Draco said.

Harry hesitated. "Harry Potter," he answered finally, and braced for impact, mentally preparing his usual spiel about how it had been his mother, not him, who had defeated Voldemort, and that her magic, not his baby superpowers, had protected him.

"Oh, you're my cousin," Draco replied with a bright smile, puncturing Harry's balloon of stress.

Harry's tension eased, and a smile spontaneously bloomed on his face.

"I don't know why we haven't met before," Draco continued. "You never come to any of the Black family gatherings, do you?"

"My dad's a little uptight about—well, you know," Harry explained. He made a vague gesture that encompassed a world of complexity.

Draco snorted. "Mine, too. So you won't tell anyone what I said?"

"Of course not," Harry agreed. "But why does your dad want it kept secret?"

Draco shrugged. "I dunno; he probably knows who it was or something. Probably some loony friend of his. He could fill a whole ward at Mungo's with all the nutters he hangs around with."

Harry laughed, relieved, but his gaiety faded after a moment, as it dawned on him that it was just possible that Lucius Malfoy _did _know who that 'mad dark wizard' in the Alley had been. After all, Rabastan had been staying with the Malfoys the last Harry had heard, and he had seen Harry kill dozens of dementors in the cavern under the sea. Of course, Rab had taken a magical vow to keep Harry's secrets, but, as he had observed when Rab was being tortured by the former Wizenwarden, there were ways of getting around such a vow. And Harry had no doubt that Lucius Malfoy, of all people, knew many crafty ways to ferret out the truth.

* * *

Notes: Thanks so much for all the support. It really does inspire me to keep going. So let me know if you enjoyed it.


	5. Hidden Faces

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

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**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 5. HIDDEN FACES ─┴─┬─┴─┬─**

"Say, is it true you were kidnapped by a bunch of lunatics and taken to Azkaban?" Draco asked with wide, shining eyes.

"Er," Harry said, "I was kidnapped by a bunch of lunatics, but I was already on Azkaban."

Draco's petal-pink lips made a perfect 'O' of astonishment. "_Were_ you?" he breathed. He seemed awed. "Wicked."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I wasn't _imprisoned_ there, I was just living on the island with my dad. He works there."

"Oh." Draco looked disappointed. Just then, the door to the compartment opened again, sending him tumbling backward onto the shoes of a bushy-haired brunette with pretty brown eyes.

"Oh! Sorry!" she cried, revealing an unfortunate set of overlarge front teeth. "But, really, why were you sitting against the door?" she demanded, in a confident, no-nonsense sort of voice. "It isn't safe."

"Not when you're around," Draco agreed rudely, raking his hair out of his eyes and schlepping over to Neville's bench, where he curled up with one boot on the seat and his arms wrapped around his bent leg.

The girl shot his boot a disapproving look. "I'm Hermione Granger. Have any of you seen a rat? A boy called Ron's lost his."

Neville and Harry glanced at each other, then chuckled. The girl blushed as though they were laughing at her. Draco just looked bored.

Neville, taking note of her discomfort, said quickly, "I'm Neville, and this is Draco and Harry. Are you a first-year, too?"

Hermione seemed to take his interest as a declaration of friendship, because she plopped down next to Harry without so much as a by-your-leave, apparently having forgotten all about her quest to find Ron's rat.

"Yes! I'm ever so excited. I only found out I was magic a few weeks ago, you see, and there's never been a witch or wizard in my family before."

For some reason, her light-hearted excitement and optimism about being accepted to Hogwarts made his own bitter resignation at his attendance weigh down on Harry more heavily than ever. He had been as eager and enthusiastic as her, once, thinking that books and teachers held all the secrets, that the gates to knowledge would be flung wide to welcome him if only he knocked. Instead, he had been made to struggle and suffer for mere scraps of understanding.

"I know I'll be dreadfully behind," she continued, "but I've learnt off all our books by heart. I—"

"You shouldn't put too much faith in books," Harry replied. "Magic isn't as cut and dry as you might think, and all the really good books are banned, anyway."

That corked her spigot, and Draco took the chance to pipe up.

"Oh, my father has loads of banned books in our library at home. You should come over sometime and read them."

"I thought only books about dark magic were banned," Hermione said. "Your father isn't a dark wizard, is he?"

Harry snorted and Draco glared. Hermione began to look offended again, but Neville swooped in to save them all.

"Most of the really old books have a bit of dark magic in them," the plump boy explained to Hermione. "It was all jumbled together in the olden days."

Harry let this generous half-truth pass without comment. Neville was really more discerning than he had given him credit for, he reflected.

"Oh, like the books in the restricted section at Hogwarts—I've read all about Hogwarts, of course. I'm particularly interested in the houses. Gryffindor seems to be the best, don't you think?"

Neville nodded brightly, but Harry made a face, and Draco outright jeered.

"Well, which house do _you_ think is the best, then?" she asked them defensively, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows.

"Anywhere but _Gryffindor_," Draco said. "They're so obnoxious. Almost as bad as Slytherin."

Harry blinked. He had already gathered from Draco's usual mode of muggle dress that the boy didn't exactly share all his parents' opinions, but it was still surprising to hear a Malfoy abuse Slytherin.

"I'm going to try for Ravenclaw," Harry offered.

"I probably _should _be in Ravenclaw," Hermione admitted with a wistful sigh, "but I'm just so tired of being the brainy one all the time." She hesitated uncertainly, looking away from them. "You see, I, well, I didn't have a very good time at my old school…"

It was the first sign she had given that all was not sunshine and rainbows in her world, and Harry found himself liking her a bit more for it, especially since he had the same problem.

"The last place they'd look down on you for being brainy is Ravenclaw. I'd be rubbish there," Neville told her. "But you'd probably feel right at home."

Hermione frowned, chewing her lip. "I see what you mean," she said.

"Besides," Harry added, "if you really want to change your personality just to be more popular, that would probably mean you belong in Slytherin, not Gryffindor." She looked hurt by this, so he continued hastily, "I mean—I know how you feel. Everyone at my old school hated me, too."

"Not _everyone_," Neville interjected.

"Everyone except Neville," Harry corrected.

Hermione's expression was conflicted. "Maybe you're right," she allowed.

Draco chimed in with a smirk, "Just think, in Ravenclaw, you mightactually be the dumb one." Hermione looked horrified. "Anyway, Gryffindors are wankers."

And, without warning, he spouted a bit of poetry:

_ "__There once was a wizard called Godric,  
__Who had a peculiar Quidditch trick.  
__When he needed to squat,  
__And had no chamber pot,  
__He would go off the end of his broomstick."__  
_

Hermione covered her mouth with both hands. The others burst out laughing. Draco grinned impishly and reeled off another:

"_There once was a witch, Hufflepuff,  
__Who liked to sleep in the buff.  
__Through the window one night,  
__A bird entered in flight,  
__And laid its nest in her muff."_

Hermione gasped and turned bright red.

"I don't get it," Neville said blankly.

So it was that Harry found himself managing to enjoy the ride to Hogwarts, in the presence of, if not exactly friends, certainly not enemies. It did not last.

* * *

The first sign of trouble was a violent side-to-side rocking of the train carriage that sent Hermione tumbling into Harry, and several pieces of luggage toppling from the overhead racks. With the bushy-haired girl sprawled all over him, Harry couldn't manage to catch any of the falling items with cushioning charms, and Neville took a solid whack from a rigid valise that left him with a bloody nose.

As soon as he could, Harry shoved Hermione off him and sprang to his feet.

"Really, there's no need to get pushy," she scolded him.

Harry ignored her, scanning the terrain outside the window for the source of the trouble. There was nothing. The train continued on smoothly at speed.

"I'm sure it was just some mechanical trouble," she offered.

Harry frowned at her impatiently. "The train is magical. Not mechanical."

Harry slid the compartment door open and looked out. The passageway was already crowded with students, but they scurried back into their compartments when a magically amplified voice boomed,

"Everyone back in your seats!"

It was Severus Snape, sweeping down the corridor with a face like a thundercloud. Students scattered before him like leaves before a tempest.

"That includes you, Potter," Snape growled as he spotted Harry.

Before Harry could comply, something ominous caught his attention. Two souls, probably human, neither of which Harry recognized, were approaching the train. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them—except for the fact that they were hurtling towards the train from above with terrific speed.

A split-second later, just long enough for Snape to follow Harry's startled gaze upward, a pair of deafening, hollow bangs sounded, and the ceiling buckled visibly. Later, Harry had the time to realize that the train must have been powerfully enchanted to withstand impacts, since the damage was relatively small compared to the force applied, but in the moment, he was only reacting.

Snape moved first, racing away in a flurry of swirling black robes for the door at the end of the train. Harry stepped back into the compartment long enough to pull James' invisibility cloak from his pocket and toss it at Draco.

"You three hide under that!" he called over his shoulder as he pelted along the corridor after Snape.

"What about you?" Draco called in a somewhat high and panicky voice. But when he peered out into the corridor, Harry was gone. After a moment, Hermione very sensibly yanked Draco back inside the compartment by the scruff of his shirt, and shut and locked the door.

* * *

Having rendered himself silent and invisible, Harry was on the verge of flinging himself through the door at the end of the train, when he was arrested, on the tip of his toes, by the sudden thought that it might be very foolish to open the train when there were people trying to break in. A moment's furious thought reassured him. Snape had just gone through, and, after all, the attackers hadn't even bothered with the door, so it must be well enchanted.

That decided, Harry plunged through and found himself on a narrow platform surrounded by a flimsy metal railing. To his right, the sun had settled on the horizon, bathing the gently rolling hills of grassy moorland in golden radiance and suffusing the tufted clouds with rosy light. The roar of the train drowned out any other noise, and the warm summer air, redolent with the scents of grass and wildflowers, whipped his hair and clothing wildly.

A metal ladder was built into the railing, but in order to reach the top of the train, Harry would have to swing around and climb it on the opposite side, with nothing more beneath him than the tracks that sped by so quickly that they were only a blur. Harry's hands were sweaty as he grasped the spindly steel rungs of the ladder with extra-strength sticking charms; the vibration of the train would have been more than enough to jar him loose, if it weren't for his magic.

As his head came level with the top of the train, a sizzling, purple jet of magic winged off the metal and zipped past Harry's ear. The jolt of fear that burst through him left a sour taste in his mouth, and he did not dare raise his head again until he had secured a magical shield around himself. He wasn't sure how well the shield was likely to work, but it was better than nothing. That done, he steeled himself and went for another look at the battle in progress.

Snape was fighting atop the carriage with his back to Harry, facing off against both attackers at once. In his right hand, his wand twirled, darted, and flicked as he rained down spells upon the two figures. In his left hand, something silvery gleamed, a tool of some sort, which he was using to parry spells. He moved with the grace of a large cat, dodging some spells and deflecting others, even as he counterattacked ferociously.

The two attackers lacked Snape's speed and agility, but they outnumbered him, and it seemed to Harry that the professor was battling at the limit of his abilities, while the attackers held their strength in reserve. They were shrouded in yards of sinuous grey fabric that did not flap in the wind, as Snape's robes did, but which instead swirled and flowed around them uncannily with their movements. The cowls concealing their faces were so deep that they must have been using extra-sensory spells to see out.

Harry watched, scarcely breathing, with no more thought in his head than to watch the spectacle, until suddenly, as Snape dodged one bolt of red magic, another bolt caught him in the side. The force of the attack spun him half around and knocked him sprawling on his hands and knees. Before he could recover, the taller of the two assailants seized the opportunity to pin Snape down with bands of white magic that fastened the professor's wrists to the roof of the train.

Snape was far from beaten, however, even when immobilized. With near instantaneous reaction speed, he raised a shield that warped the air around him and repelled all the magic that fell upon it. The attacker continued to hold the binding spell on Snape, while inside the shield, the black-haired man worked feverishly at freeing himself, but it seemed that they were at a stalemate.

With the train's defender neutralized for the moment, the second attacker turned away and began boring into the roof of the train with a bright red beam of magic that sent sparks flying. He aimed his spell precisely at the point where the earlier impact had most weakened the metal, and possibly, Harry supposed, the enchantments that protected the carriage.

Even then, Harry still might not have entered the fray, had it not been for the souls that he spied directly beneath the roof where the attackers held their ground—Draco and Hermione. He felt personally aggrieved by their presence. He had given them the cloak so they could protect themselves, not so they could get themselves killed to no purpose. Harry already knew that Draco liked to get himself into trouble unnecessarily; the incident in the Alleys had shown him that, but he had supposed the muggle-born girl to have more sense. At least Neville had a healthy interest in staying alive.

Of course, Harry, too, had placed himself in a dangerous position, but, unlike them, he had the means to protect himself. He also had a realistic grasp of his own capabilities, which was why he had stayed out of the fight. He had seen immediately that he had about as much chance of outmatching the attacking wizards in a duel as he had of beating a werewolf in an arm-wrestling contest. The only edge he had on them was his power over souls.

So that was what Harry used, as the bolt of red magic bored ever deeper into the metal canopy of the train. He reached out and delicately tugged at the soul of the attacker. He wasn't sure how much strength to use, since he was much more familiar with the souls of animals than of humans, but he thought the attacker would be rendered unconscious. He did not get the reaction he expected, however. A shrieking howl of fear and rage tore from the grey-robed figure, a sound that would have been at home on Azkaban. Then a creature of shining silvery magic sprang at Harry—a patronus.

Harry lost his grip on the ladder, so startled was he, and fell down a rung before seizing the metal once more with such panicked magic that the bars warped out of shape with a protesting whine. The patronus, in the form of a wolf, seemed able to see right through Harry's invisibility. It floated on air as it pursued him, and dug its dripping fangs savagely into Harry's arm. The attack didn't rend Harry's flesh as real teeth would have, but it burned with pain so intense that it radiated up to his shoulder and ripped a scream from Harry's throat.

The intensity of Harry's fear-driven rage made it easy to summon his raven-shaped anti-patronus, Bello. The two beasts, one the colour of snow and moonlit clouds, the other of tar and glowing lava, ripped and shredded each other into motes of glittering magic. When the threat had passed, Harry peered over the top of the train with a snarl affixed to his face, intent on stopping the assailants even if it killed them.

Before he could act, however, the scene changed utterly. At first, Snape was still held fast by one attacker, while the other continued boring into the train. But just as Harry reached out to yank at that one's soul, there was a screeching sound of metal giving way, and a yawning fissure opened in the train roof, spreading several metres almost instantaneously, and dumping the two attackers, along with Snape, into the carriage.

Harry gaped as a cacophony of shrieks, shouts, and bangs issued from inside the train, while the souls below hopped about in confusion. Then he saw a massive figure unfold itself from inside the carriage, brushing the remains of the roof away as easily as paper. It was Hagrid, standing at his full height, head and shoulders above where the roof had been. He held both attackers, one in each hand, like twigs of kindling that he was about to snap. The figures were flailing wildly and shooting spells that rebounded uselessly off the thick-skinned half-giant. With a roar of triumphant rage, Hagrid hurled them from the train, and with nearly simultaneous cracks of apparition, the grey-robed figures disappeared in mid-air.

* * *

Harry stared vacantly after the absent attackers for a few seconds, until his head cleared and he made his way hastily back down the ladder and into the train. He slipped into the bathroom to give himself a safe place to remove his invisibility, and then made straight for Draco and Hermione, who were crouched in the corner of a nearby compartment. He was obliged to wait a few minutes, however, as Snape was blocking the corridor while he repaired the roof, cast new charms of protection, and bullied the other students back into their compartments with his usual less-the-comforting manner.

When the black-haired professor finally moved off, Harry darted after him on silent feet and slipped into the compartment housing his travelling companions. Before he could greet the two or demand what they had thought they were doing, however, he was met with a sight so shocking that it dwarfed the entire fight which had just ensued. Harry's jaw went slack, and the colour drained from his face. He stood frozen in pure, dumbfounded shock and horror, staring at the other person in the carriage.

"Harry!" Draco shouted.

"Where have you _been_?" Hermione cried shrilly. Her face was screwed up with worry and fright, even though the danger had passed. "We thought you'd been attacked or—or—"

Harry did not look at them. If Cornelius Fudge himself had suddenly appeared wearing a tutu and dancing the fandango with a house-elf, Harry still could not have torn his eyes away from _that_ man, sitting calmly next to Draco Malfoy and smiling with a stolen face.

"What are you doing here?" Harry demanded of the man rudely.

The man smiled nervously. He was in the guise of a pale young man, perhaps thirty, with nondescript brown hair, wearing drab purple robes.

"Hello," he greeted Harry. His eye was twitching with nervousness. "I'm the new Defence Against the Dark Arts p-p-professor. Quirinus Quirrell. Pleased to m-m-meet you."

Harry glared balefully at the imposter. If looks could have killed, the man would have spontaneously combusted from the heat of Harry's fiery wrath. As it was, he merely issued a nervous kind of titter.

The man's face was not familiar to Harry, but his soul most certainly was, and as Harry sank into the seat next to Hermione, with his gaze still glued to that face, Harry let the man know that he was recognized by strumming the strings of his soul with just enough force for him to feel it.

Rabastan Lestrange shuddered.

* * *

Notes: If there's a train, how can anyone resist a fight scene atop it? Next chapter is the Sorting. Thanks for all the favs, follows, and reviews!


	6. Black Water

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Note: I did write my own version of the sorting song and Dumbledore's few words speech. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 6. BLACK WATER ─┴─┬─┴─┬**

Harry and Rabastan, disguised as Quirrell, were engaged in a silent staring contest when Snape flung open the door with a bang. The black-haired professor was flanked by a young Auror wearing a dragon-hide cloak and displaying her badge of office openly. Harry knew the woman vaguely, having been to visit James' old workplace on several occasions. She was one of his cousins on the Black side and had entertained him as a child a few times, but on the present occasion she looked quite serious, even severe.

"Quirinus, Auror Tonks would like a word with you," Snape said.

"Hello, Draco, Harry," Tonks greeted them with a small smile. She extended the smile to Hermione as well. "My cousins," she explained to Snape, whose lips writhed with the apparent urge to sneer.

"Fascinating," the professor drawled. He nodded peaceably at Draco, who was beaming, and then shot Harry an ugly look.

"You certainly do have a lot of magical relatives," Hermione remarked to the two boys when the adults had departed.

"Snape is my godfather, too," Draco told her, inciting a vexed click of the tongue from the muggleborn girl.

Harry ignored them, frowning as the souls moved away down the corridor. He wished he knew whether Rab had been on the train all along, or whether he had somehow infiltrated during the fight with the grey-robed attackers. Not to mention what he intended by impersonating a Hogwarts professor.

"But most of my relatives are dreadfully boring or in Azkaban," Draco continued. "Some of them are both."

"Most of mine are dentists," Hermione said.

"How did you end up sitting with Quirrell?" Harry interrupted. "You were supposed to be hiding, so what did you come down here for?"

"We were looking for you, you prat," Draco answered. "We thought you might be in trouble, since you didn't come back."

"And then we heard the professors arguing," Hermione continued.

"That big one's not a professor," Draco cut in. "I think he's a butler or something at Hogwarts."

"He's the Gamekeeper," Harry put in.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, whoever they were, we couldn't get past them since they were in the corridor, so we came in here."

"What were they arguing about?" Harry asked keenly.

The bushy-haired girl considered. "I think it was about whether they should go outside. Quirrell was all for it, but the big one, Hagrid, he kept saying that he couldn't leave the train no matter what. Said he'd promised Dumbledore."

Harry chewed on his lip, thinking that over. It was very odd for Hagrid to ride the train in the first place, given that he could only fit inside with the aid of a personal space-expanding charm. Even if Dumbledore had sent him on some urgent errand, why return on the Hogwarts Express? Unless by doing so he was using the children as a kind of shield? That was a troubling thought.

"Do you know Professor Quirrell?" Hermione asked Harry, with a shrewd look in her eye. "Is he your cousin or your uncle or something?"

Harry glanced at her, startled by the accuracy of her guess. "I've never seen him before in my life."

"So where were you, anyway?" Draco demanded, bouncing slightly in his seat. "Did you see what happened? Did one of those muggle aeropiles fall out of the sky and land on the train?"

Harry snorted at the comical mispronunciation.

"_Airplane_," Hermione corrected the blonde. "They're called airplanes. And the whole train would have blown up if one of those had fallen on us."

"What, really?" Draco asked, looking excited. "Can they do that?"

Hermione, looking appalled, glanced over at Harry for help. He just laughed and left her to it.

* * *

It was twilight when the train pulled in to Hogsmeade, and the first few stars pierced a clear purple sky overhead, while the last flaming glow of day clung to a cleft between two mountains. Harry and the other first years followed Hagrid's looming silhouette down a steep, narrow path that wound its way between gargantuan old trees that looked as though they'd been growing since the world was young. They emerged on the gravel shore of a long black lake between two mountain ridges, and on the opposite side sat Hogwarts.

The castle was more like an opulent French palace than the usual craggy stone fortresses Harry was accustomed to seeing in Scotland. There were no crenulations or arrow-slits here, no moats or murder-holes. On the contrary, the walls seemed half made up of windows, and with the last glow of purple twilight fading on the horizon, they were resplendent with warm golden light.

Unlike the continental palaces Harry had seen in pictures, however, there was no architectural order here: round towers with conical roofs, zigzagging wings, and precipitous arches had been jumbled together all higgledy-piggledy. Yet the result was undeniably charming, especially since, rather than being left naked to grow lichen, the walls were painted white, and the roofs a merry Mediterranean blue.

This place, Harry reflected as his new classmates oohed and ahhed around him, was the antithesis of the fortress at Azkaban, with its shroud of mist and its cold black towers that scraped the sky. Yet although this place was beautiful and that one severe, though this place welcomed him and that one had almost claimed his life, Harry felt less at home here than he had on Azkaban. This place did not speak to his half-soul in the way that one had.

"Wow," Hermione breathed. "It's so…" Her voice was awed. Draco looked hopeful and fearful at once. Harry, it seemed, was the only one who turned his eyes away. And that was why he was the only one to see what he did.

A dozen yards away, between two ancient, cyclopean trees, a red light bobbed. Thinking it a spell, Harry tried to make out the shape of the person casting it, but the gloom was too deep. Then a gust of wind blew Harry's bangs into his eyes, and by the times he had brushed them away, the light was gone.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid shouted in his thick brogue.

Draco tugged at Harry's sleeve, and he absently followed the blonde to a little rowboat, sans oars, that awaited them amongst a fleet of its fellows along the shore. Hermione joined them, and, after a moment, Neville appeared to fill out their number.

When everyone had clambered into the boats, the little fleet took off across the lake of its own accord. There were a number of gasps and giggles at the sudden motion, but they died out quickly. Everyone seemed too in awe of the magic and the castle to disturb the moment with voices.

Even Harry was entranced by the beauty of the scenery. The glittering cascade of stars in the velvet sky overhead was reflected in the placid waters of the lake, and he reached down as if to pluck one like a diamond from the water, and suddenly—Harry caught a glimpse of Hermione's eager smile being replaced with a startled look of fear—as a cold, slimy hand from beneath the water grabbed onto his own—the world tilted as Harry toppled out of the boat, and then—everything was black, silent, and cold.

* * *

The icy waters of the Black Lake embraced Harry like a womb, and for several moments he simply relaxed into the comforting pressure. As he floated there, trying distantly to orient himself to gravity, a green light sparked to life somewhere in the water near him, moving slowly closer, and Harry's mind focused automatically, gaining that clarity of thought that the memory of death had always offered him.

Here, wrapped in the embrace of the lake, he could once more feel thrumming, around him and within him, that queer power that had suffused the cavern beneath the sea at Azkaban. In that place, others' magic had dwindled like fires robbed of oxygen, but Harry's had blazed more brightly. So it was here. He felt magic flowing freely into his coral focus, and he used it in a burst of need to fill his lungs with fresh air and keep the supply coming, steadily.

The murky green light resolved slowly into a myriad of smaller lights, which wound sinuously through the dark water towards Harry. He watched, unafraid, until they were within several feet of him and he could see what they were.

A creature bobbed in the water before Harry—from the waist up he was a large, muscular man, and from the waist down he was a silver-green fish. His hair was like sea-grass, through which were twined strands of stones that glowed the colour of algae. His soul was slightly larger than a wizard's, and, though his upper half was human, his face was strangely feral. In one hand, he carried a silver trident dotted with barnacles. He bared several rows of sharp, triangular teeth at Harry, then bowed his head slightly.

"Hag-spawn," he said. The sound was like the ringing of deep bells. "Our queen wisheth thee to know thou art welcome in her domain."

_Some welcome_, Harry thought, but decided not to question it. Merfolk were enigmatic creatures at best, not given to explaining their ways to outsiders. "Um…thank you?" he replied hesitantly, with a burst of bubbles. His own voice sounded like a watery burble compared to this creature's. "I think I had better go back now."

"Dost thou require aid?" the merman asked, lifting his face to gaze towards the surface. "The clamour of thy companions echoeth even unto these depths."

Harry, too, raised his face, but could neither see nor hear anything above the water. "I would appreciate it," he replied.

The merman seized Harry by the wrist, and, with a powerful flexing of his tail, propelled them to the surface in seconds. They passed Hagrid, thrashing about and casting spells with an absurd pink brolly, and burst from the water to find a circle of pale, frightened faces staring down at the water from the boats.

"Harry!" Neville cried in relief. Hermione looked too frightened to speak, and Draco just grinned at him.

The merman nodded to Harry and disappeared with a gleam of green scales. Hagrid surfaced a moment later and threw himself at Harry, clutching the slight boy to his breast and blubbering something or other that was too frantic and Scottish to be understood. He set Harry back in his boat with arms as massive as tree trunks, and then blew his nose with a sopping wet hanky the size of a tablecloth.

* * *

"You must be freezing," Hermione exclaimed as Harry dripped all over the flagstones of the entrance hall as they waited for the Sorting Ceremony to begin.

"I'm fine," Harry murmured.

The wide oak doors swung open before them, and the gaggle of small first-years proceeded into the Hall, where they found a few hundred older students regarding them with looks ranging from curiosity to boredom to outright disdain.

The room was magnificent: thousands of candles floated above their heads, golden plates and goblets gleamed at every setting, and high above them the enchanted ceiling glittered with stars. At the opposite end of the room, the staff sat facing the students at a long table atop a raised platform.

As Professor McGonagall led them across the hall to the platform, where a stool with a hat waited to sort them, Harry's eyes zeroed in on the man at the centre of the table. The wizard sat in a plain wooden chair just like all the others, but his great age, his flowing silver beard, half-moon spectacles, beneficent expression, and, most of all, his ludicrous purple and orange robes named him Dumbledore.

Professor McGonagall went to stand beside the stool atop the platform, and touched the hat. A rip near its brim opened like a mouth, and it burst into merry song.

_Oh, hear me, young wizards and witches,  
__Attend ye to my song,  
__I'm more by far than hide and stitches—  
__I put you where you belong._

_The houses of Hogwarts are four,  
__Each favours different traits,  
__Their names are from the founders of yore,  
__So come and learn your fates!_

_Sir Gryffindor loved chivalry most,  
__And those who would dare much,  
__But don't therein begin to boast,  
__And lose the common touch._

_Good Hufflepuff liked loyalty best,  
__And those who would work hard,  
__But have a care you get your rest,  
__And don't good sense discard._

_Fair Ravenclaw prized knowledge high,  
__And those whose wit was keen,  
__But don't for books your friends pass by,  
__Nor lesser minds demean._

_Shrewd Slytherin ambition prized,  
__And those accounted clever,  
__But see that when you reach the skies,  
__You don't your old ties sever._

_So try me on, your mind I'll dowse,  
__But take my good advice:  
__The traits of any single house  
__Cannot alone suffice._

When the song was done, there was a round of applause, and then Professor McGonagall produced a scroll of parchment and began to read the names of the first-years in alphabetical order.

When McGonagall read out, "Anthony Goldstein," Harry was startled to realize that the boy who had bullied him at his old primary school had been standing next to him the entire time. Harry suspected Tony had been the one who had owled him a dead snake on his birthday once, and he groaned when the boy was sorted into Ravenclaw, though he supposed Tony had been rather a good student, now that he thought of it.

Goyle followed Tony, and was readily sorted into Slytherin, as Crabbe had been. Hermione went next, and she squeezed Draco and Harry's hands so tightly when her name was read that they were both wincing and rubbing the circulation back while she scampered up to the stool.

There was a long, silent moment while they all waited, and then the hat shouted, "RAVENCLAW!"

Harry smiled. He had no doubt the quick-witted, book-loving girl would be far happier in Ravenclaw than in Gryffindor. Hermione grinned delightedly at her group of traveling companions and trotted off to the Ravenclaw table.

Neville went a little later, and his sorting was another the hat had to think about for a while. Eventually it settled on "GRYFFINDOR!" and Neville looked deeply startled, then immensely pleased.

After Neville went Draco, and this wait was the longest yet. Draco's lovely face squinched up as though he were taking a really hard test, and several times his lips moved as though he were speaking. At one point, the hat's fold opened as if to shout, and Draco clapped his hands over the spot, making it call out, "MRBRBRN!"

There was a ripple of laughter across the hall at that. Harry got the distinct impression that the hat had tried to say Slytherin. Draco had to wrestle the hat to get it to stay on his head after that, as McGonagall hovered nearby, looking outraged at the blonde's manhandling of the precious antique. Dumbledore, clearly intrigued, waved her off and let Draco continue what could now be termed a match of wills.

Another few minutes went by with Draco mumbling and making a crafty face, and at last the hat opened its fold and spoke, rather than shouted, in quite a peeved tone: "_Ravenclaw_."

There was hesitant applause that picked up heartily when Draco grinned and swept the hat off his head to perform an elaborate bow. The grizzled old bit of leather gave the small blonde a toothless bite for his trouble as Draco tried to set it back on the stool, and the blonde began waving his arm around franticly, trying to dislodge it. When he finally succeeded, the hat went flying across the room and hit Quirrell in the face, prompting another wave of laughter from the hall.

Harry smiled uncertainly as Draco gave him a wave and thumbs up. He really hoped Draco hadn't done all that on his account. He didn't want to be blamed for it later if Draco turned out to be unhappy in the house of eagles. Over at the Slytherin table, Draco's quasi-bodyguards, Crabbe and Goyle, looked poleaxed, but Draco ignored them. Instead, the blonde waved happily at his godfather, but the dour potions professor was pretending not to have noticed him, as if that were possible, and Harry felt a little spark of spiteful glee at the idea that Draco might have embarrassed the man with his wildly undignified behaviour.

A few names later, it was Harry's turn, and he ascended the three steps to the platform in anxious anticipation. Professor McGonagall gave him a neutral smile and then clapped the hat down over his head. The stiff, worn leather fell over his eyes, but he adjusted it quickly, unwilling to have his vision blocked when hundreds of people were staring at him. Most people closed their eyes when wearing the hat, but Harry just looked around the Great Hall, his expression carefully blank.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, and then the hat seemed to stir atop his head, and a voice as dry and cracked as the old leather spoke directly into Harry's mind.

_Hmm, what have we here_, the voice mused.

_Ravenclaw,_ Harry answered firmly. _I want to be in Ravenclaw._

_Ravenclaw, eh? Well, you've the mind for it, most definitely, but you've bravery, as well; ambition, too; and you are a hard worker._

_I'm only brave when I have to be_, Harry insisted mentally, _and my greatest ambition is knowledge. I work hard, but it's self-serving._

_True enough_, the hat agreed. _Well, then, it'd better be…_

"RAVENCLAW!" the hat thundered.

Harry snatched the hat off and handed it back to McGonagall, who looked disappointed for some reason. He strode towards the Ravenclaw table and sat down in a seat across from Draco and Hermione, who were sitting next to each other. Unfortunately, that also put Harry next to Tony, but since the boy hadn't bothered him before, he chose to hope that he wouldn't do so now.

Though there had been virtually zero chance of it, Harry was nevertheless relieved that Ron was not placed into Ravenclaw. The ginger was Sorted into Gryffindor, as expected. After Zabini, Blaise, had taken his turn, Professor McGonagall put up the scroll and took her place at the staff table. The Headmaster rose then, and spread his arms in a magnanimous and sincere-seeming gesture of welcome.

"Welcome!" the tall, white-bearded man called in a cheerful tone. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Scuttlebutt! Hodgepodge! Gewgaw! Plink!"

Harry stared at Dumbledore in startled silence, then chuckled along with the rest of the hall. Dumbledore's barmy old codger act might be no more than a clever ruse, as James had often bitterly insisted when he was in his cups, but it was nevertheless amusing, and the old man was clearly enjoying himself thoroughly, if the twinkling smile on his face was any sign.

"Thank you!" Dumbledore said, bowing slightly, and with a wave of his hand, a sumptuous feast materialized on every table. There was roast beef, fried chicken, smoked hams, grilled steak, peas, carrots, mashed potatoes, and on and on.

As they loaded their plates, Hermione said to Draco, "I didn't think you'd be in Ravenclaw, too!"

"What? Don't I seem smart?"

"N-no—I, I mean—yes, of course you do," she answered weakly, looking at Harry for help.

"I'll have you know I could have placed into third-year potions, but my godfather said it would make the other students jealous. He's the potions professor, you know."

"You mean that black-haired man from the train? The one who was ignoring you?" Hermione asked dryly.

"Yes!" Draco grinned and waved again at the man in question. Snape ignored him so pointedly that he actually began conversing with Professor Sinistra, which took the woman so aback that she spilled her goblet into her lap.

Harry and Hermione exchanged a look that could not be easily put into words. Then they both grinned, and Harry was struck by the sudden realization that he had made a friend. Two friends, in fact. Maybe it was possible that he would be happy at Hogwarts, after all.


	7. Spiritus Aquilae

─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─ **MUSIC FROM A FARTHER ROOM** ─┼─╫─┼─╫─┼─

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling.

Note: Thanks for all the reviews, favs, and follows. Do note that if you would like any sort of response to your review, you will need to leave it with an actual account, as I consider addressing individual readers in the author's notes to be a waste of my other readers' space. Also, I will be taking my Qualifying Exams for my PhD in about a month, so I may not post in the interim, as I will be spending a lot of time studying. Seriously, the hat would have put me in Ravenclaw so fast it would have made Draco's sorting in canon look like molasses flowing... Enjoy the chapter!

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**─┬─┴─┬─┴─ 7. SPIRITUS AQUILAE ─┴─┬─┴─┬**

Harry had always been a good student—an outstanding one, in fact—but he had never been happy at school. A few minutes after joining his two new friends at the Ravenclaw table, he received a stark reminder of the reason, when Hermione decided to introduce herself to the boy sitting next to Harry.

It had been years since Harry had even seen Anthony Goldstein, which was why he hadn't recognized him at first. The boy's golden hair had darkened to a light brown, and he'd gained several inches in height, but his hazel eyes still had that arrogant, unkind look in them.

"You've got quite a mouth on you," was all Tony said to Hermione's friendly prattling. The girl flushed with embarrassment and anger. "And you, Malfoy. You'd better not be planning to lose us loads of house points. Really, dressing like muggle riff-raff and abusing the sorting hat—I think you'd be better off in Gryffindor."

Draco sat up rigidly in his seat and favoured Tony with the sort of haughty sneer Harry had expected all along from a Malfoy but had not yet seen. "Well, I think _you'd _be better off in Slytherin," the blonde retorted.

"Yes, the hat did consider Slytherin for me. I'm sure I would have done well there."

With his insult deflected, Draco no longer appeared certain whether they were having an argument or not. Tony turned to Harry then.

"Hello, Potter. Finally crawled out from the woodwork, I see. Where've you been, the loony ward at Mungo's?"

Harry stabbed a piece of meat with unnecessary violence. "Azkaban," he replied shortly.

Tony snorted. "Oh, yes, you're a really hardened criminal, I'm sure. I bet you peed your pants when your thug of a father dragged you off the boat."

For some reason, even though Harry hadn't intended to let the other boy provoke him, hearing Tony speak ill of James caused the long-burning coals of Harry's bitter resentment to spring into flames once more. He had a sudden, nasty idea.

"You know, I never did thank you for the birthday present you got me that time," Harry said in a mockery of politeness.

Tony looked mildly guilty, and was startled enough to mumble, "Oh…er…that was Ron's idea…" Then he recovered himself and put on a smirk. "Why, did you like it?"

"Oh, yes," Harry agreed, keeping his eyes on his food. "I cuddle up with it every night when I'm going to sleep."

Harry saw from the corner of his eye that a revolted expression crossed Tony's face, and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing aloud. Across the table, Hermione and Draco looked puzzled.

"You are such a freak," Tony hissed, scooting farther away from Harry.

"Would you like to see it?" Harry asked innocently. And with that, he reached into his shirt, dragged the sleeping Lady out, and dumped her in Tony's lap.

With a shrill scream, Tony shot out of his seat, prompting the other students around him to also jump up in fear of some unseen danger. Harry reached under the table to grab Lady from where she had fallen, then quickly stuffed her back under his shirt before anyone else could spot her. She grumbled at him in a sleepy hiss and threatened to bite him if he woke her up again.

"Potter!" a familiar voice barked behind him. It was Snape, swooping down on him like a malevolent bat, with an expression of mingled glee and malice. "What's going on here?"

Flitwick, the head of their house, was trotting over as well, but the little wizard's legs were too short to allow him to catch up quickly.

"I don't know, professor," Harry answered smoothly. "I think something startled Tony."

"Well?" Snape demanded curtly, turning to Tony, whose face was flushed and dewy with sweat. He was breathing heavily from the sudden fright. "What's the matter?"

"N-nothing," Tony stammered, eyeing Harry a little fearfully. "Sir. Just—thought something touched my ankle. Probably a mouse."

"Hogwarts doesn't have mice, you foolish boy," Snape snarled. "Five points from Ravenclaw for unseemly behaviour. And, you, Potter…" Snape's voice grew dark and silky as he turned on Harry once more, with that same note of satisfaction that Harry had heard earlier that day when his father had traded insults with the man. "Detention. Tomorrow night at eight. My office."

Harry did not protest, knowing perfectly well that he deserved it. Draco, however, seemed to think differently.

"Uncle Seeeevvy," the blonde whined in a childish tone. "Don't punish Harry. Tony was being awful, _really_. He deserved it."

Harry covered his mouth with his fist to stifle the startled chuckle that wanted to burst out at hearing this figure of universal awe and terror referred to as 'Uncle Sevvy'.

"One point from Ravenclaw," Snape hissed, finally deigning to look at his godson, "For cheeking a staff member."

Draco gasped and shot out of his seat as suddenly as Tony had.

"You can't take points from me!" the small blonde protested fiercely. "I'll take points from _you_!"

Everyone stared at Draco, and even Snape looked a little taken aback, but the man quickly regained his air of dignified menace.

"How many times do I have to tell you that your nonsense won't be tolerated at Hogwarts, you—you—" Snape began in an angry growl.

Draco seemed almost eager as he waited for the next word.

"You little dickens!" Snape finished.

Harry's fist pounded the table as he fairly collapsed with silent mirth.

"What is going on, what is going _on _here?" Flitwick demanded, finally reaching them. "Severus, what is the meaning of this?"

Draco answered before Snape could, and Harry was startled to see the blonde's face screwed up in an infantile expression of hurt.

"Professsssor!" Draco wailed. "Uncle Sevvy is calling me names!" Then he burst into tears and sat down with his face buried in his arms. Hermione immediately began rubbing his back and whispering to him soothingly. Draco threw himself into her arms and heaved with noisy sobs.

Flitwick turned on Snape with shock and indignation, and Harry was surprised and gratified to see the black-haired potions master looking slightly unnerved. The man cast a surreptitious glance around him and seemed to realize for the first time that everyone within reach of his voice was staring, gaping, or snickering at him.

Drawing himself up to his greatest height, Snape sneered at them all. "You seem to have this well in hand, Filius. I'll be in my office should you require any further assistance." Then, with a swirl of his robes, he turned on his heel and strode from the hall so rapidly that it could almost be called fleeing.

"There, there, Mr Malfoy," Flitwick comforted him, patting Draco's shoulder, "I'm sure he didn't mean it, really. Severus can be a bit quick-tempered. I'll just go have a nice chat with him."

"R-really?" Draco asked, raising his tear-stained face from Hermione's shoulder. "You would do that for me, professor?"

"Certainly, my boy," Flitwick chirped. "Now. You finished eating and I'll go sort Severus out. Take five points for Ravenclaw while you're at it, as my apology for his conduct."

The tiny, moustachioed professor bustled away after Snape, and Harry's laughter was finally able to burst out of him freely as he imagined the tall and lanky potions master being pursued all over the castle by the garden gnome sized charms professor.

"I _told_ him I'd take points from him," Draco exclaimed with satisfaction, wiping the last of his tears away on his sleeves and grinning broadly at Harry without a trace of the distress he had been feigning so beautifully.

"You were faking that?" Hermione demanded, her face darkening with outrage at having been used in a scheme to embarrass a professor.

"Faking—how can you say that?" Draco cried, clapping his hand to his heart and looking wounded. Then he giggled.

Hermione gave an exasperated huff, and pointedly began a conversation with the girl seated on her other side.

"I suppose that a true Slytherin might see being placed in that house as a disadvantage," Harry mused, eyeing Draco thoughtfully. The blonde stared back innocently and took a giant bite of his jacket potato. "A really clever Slytherin would probably try to get into a different house. Wouldn't he?"

In response, the blonde opened his mouth wide and treated Harry to a juvenile display of his half-chewed food. Harry sighed, shot the other boy a disgusted look, and gave up trying to figure out the mysteries of Draco Malfoy—for one night, at least.

* * *

At last, when even the most ravenous students had pushed their golden plates away, the Headmaster rose to his feet once more and banished the remains of the feast with a wave of his wand. He gave a few start-of-term notices, but the only one that actually caught Harry's attention was the last:

"Finally, I must tell you that this year the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death."

Dumbledore's eyes met Harry's on the word _death_, and the boy's skin prickled uneasily.

The Ravenclaw first-years straggled from the hall like a flock of ducklings in the wake of Penelope Clearwater, a prefect with long, curly hair. As they made their way through the labyrinthine halls and stairs of the castle, she explained a little about Ravenclaw House and pointed out various important features of the castle.

Hermione was delighted to discover that the occupants of the castle's paintings moved and spoke, but Harry, though he was far more familiar with magical paintings than the muggleborn girl, felt quite differently. He had always found ensorcelled paintings unsettling; something about the way the occupants seemed alive and yet possessed no souls disturbed him. Unfortunately, the walls of Hogwarts fairly crawled with painted people. Some stared openly from the foreground with flat, soulless eyes, while others lurked in the shadows of their canvases. Penelope even addressed a few of them merrily, much to Harry's discomfort.

At last they came to the tightly coiled spiral staircase that led to Ravenclaw Tower, and drew to a halt as Penelope explained the bronze eagle knocker that guarded the common room and would open only if someone answered one of its riddles correctly.

"Doesn't that mean anyone could get in?" Draco asked, displaying what Harry considered a admirable survival instinct. "I thought the common rooms had passwords."

"Only Gryffindor and Slytherin have passwords, and that's chiefly to keep each other out," Penelope replied dismissively. "Here in Ravenclaw, we honor everyone's differences, so we welcome visitors from any House."

The prefect went on to explain the house tradition, dating back to the Founders, that each new Ravenclaw must answer a riddle without help upon first entering the Tower. The eleven first-years queued up in alphabetical order, and climbed the winding stairs one at a time to test their wits. The first few students descended again glumly and went to the back of the line, while those who made it through got to have first pick of the beds.

Harry started at the end of the line, but of those who went before him, only Padma Patil and Hermione succeeded on their first try. When it was his turn at last, he rapped the knocker smartly, and a soft, musical voice issued from the bronze eagle's beak.

"Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?"

Harry pondered for a moment. "Well, phoenixes are birds, so they must have come after the dinosaurs. Unless there were phoenix-pterodactyls, but I think they'd be called something else, don't you? I reckon fire has been around a lot longer than that. I mean, there wouldn't be any life on this planet to begin with if it weren't for the sun, and that's just a big ball of fire, isn't it?"

The eagle sighed. "Not very elegant, but I suppose it will do."

Harry felt a bit insulted. "Well, if you wanted some rot about the eternal circle of life, maybe you should have phrased the question better," he sniped as the door swung itself open.

His annoyance was swept away at once by the majestic sight before him. The common room was a wide and airy cylindrical chamber, three stories high. The lofty, domed ceiling was made of midnight blue marble and inlaid with gleaming bronze stars connected in the shape of constellations. In the centre was Aquila, the Eagle. The floors were covered with plush carpets that echoed the decoration of the ceiling, and scattered across the curving walls were wide windows, draped with richly embroidered silk hangings, with cosy seats built in for lounging in the sun.

Wrapped around the inside of the room were two tiers of walkways, connected by stairs, which gave access to various doors. Apart from the windows and the walkways, however, the walls were covered with nothing but books, and Harry drank in the sight like a man who'd just stumbled out of the desert. The shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, three hundred and sixty degrees around the room, and six rolling ladders were positioned strategically. To Harry, the room represented all the secret knowledge of Rowena Ravenclaw herself, and there was even a marble statue of the eponymous founder, sporting a replica of her famous diadem.

In the wall opposite the entrance, a fire blazed in a huge fireplace made of the same blue marble as the ceiling. Gathered before it were cosy clusters of armchairs, many already occupied by happily chatting students. More armchairs were scattered throughout the room, and there were also large tables of dark, polished wood for students to work at.

Harry let out a long breath, and decided that his new home would have been perfect, if only it could have been his alone.

* * *

Eventually, after a few embarrassing incidents, including being caught by a girl in her nighty trying to enter the girls dorms, and interrupting some sort of arcane third-year ritual involving firewhiskey and underpants, Harry finally managed to locate the first-year boys dorm. The room was partitioned into six parts, each containing a bed and a small desk. Blue velvet curtains stretched between tracks on the floor and ceiling, allowing each boy's area to be closed off for privacy, or at least the illusion of it.

Harry claimed the bed nearest the window, where a chilly draft seeped in around the casing. He had just finished unshrinking his trunk and taking out his pyjamas when the other boys began to trickle in. Tony was first, and took the bed farthest from Harry without acknowledging the other boy's presence. Next was Stephen Cornfoot, a surly looking boy with long, messy brown hair and freckles. He glared at both Harry and Tony, and took the bed farthest from both of them. After that, Terry Boot and Michael Corner entered together, laughing and chatting like old friends, and took the two beds nearest Tony.

By the time the other four boys had turned in for the night, it was past midnight and Draco had still not appeared. Harry, never one to leave a mystery unexamined, crept into the common room on socked feet. The room appeared deserted, with only the enchanted bronze stars in the ceiling providing a soft illumination, but at the bottom, a movement caught Harry's eye, and he realized there was a woman standing before the dying embers in the fireplace.

Her profile was statuesque, and somehow familiar. Her dark hair fell limply to her shoulders, and her floor length dress was of a queerly antique style. It was hard to make out in the gloom, but Harry thought she must be a seventh year. Something about her, perhaps her remote and melancholy expression, made Harry creep closer to her. When he was only a couple of metres away, she turned and pierced him with a formidable gaze.

"It's not polite to stare," she remarked, in a low, cool voice.

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "I just…" He shrugged, at a loss. "I didn't realize anyone was still up." It was a lame excuse, and he knew it.

With a sigh, she looked back into the fire. "It's not as though I can sleep. One has to find some way to occupy the endless hours…"

"Are you a prefect?" Harry asked. The only sense he could make of her words was the idea that she had been assigned to stay up in the common room in case any of the new students needed something.

"Prefect?" she repeated blankly.

Then, with alarming speed, inhuman speed, she flashed across the intervening space and stood before Harry, searching his face. Harry froze stiffly, as she tentatively touched his cheek with the pad of one finger. At the light touch, she emitted a shocked breath, and drew away with that unnatural fleetness of foot.

"Are you…_his _child?" she asked in a strained tone.

Harry stared at her, his hand drifting to the spot on his cheek that she had touched. Her hand had been wonderfully cold.

"You're not human," Harry realized.

She lowered her head. "I was…once…but can you not _see _what I am? _He _could see. And he was the only one…in all these centuries…who could warm this deathly essence of mine…"

Harry's eyes roved over her form, searching for some clue to her identity. Her soul was the normal size for a witch, though it churned a little sluggishly, and its colour was paler than was perhaps healthy.

"You're ill," he guessed. "Dying."

She laughed. The sound was dark and rough, yet not unpleasant. "Dying…yes, I suppose I am…if you can call this _life_…"

"Believe me," Harry assured her, "I know when things are dead."

She shook her head. "You _are_ like him," she murmured to herself, approaching him once more, tentatively. "What is your name, child?"

"Harry Potter."

She reached out and rested her frigid hands against his cheeks, and used them to tilt his face upward. From so close, Harry could see that her eyes were grey, and that she was older than he had supposed. She had been pretty once, and still was, in a way, but her face seemed to have been ravaged by grief.

"No," she whispered. "That is not your name."

"It's the only name I have," he answered, thoroughly bemused and yet utterly entranced by her strangeness.

"Do you hear the voices?" she asked, still holding his face. "The voices that float across the sea?"

Harry drew in his breath sharply, beginning to have an inkling of what she was. A quiver of excitement zinged through him. "The sea—do you mean—is it a green sea?"

"Perhaps, for you. It is different for each of us, yet it claims us all in the end."

"Then how are you here?" Harry asked wonderingly. "I was always taught that ghosts are mere shadows—echoes—like paintings…but you are really _here_! Your _soul _is _here_—intact—at least all of it that I can see."

A moment too late, he clapped his hand to his mouth, realizing his mistake.

"You _are_ like him," she exclaimed, drawing back at last and wetting her lips in an oddly human gesture. "You are. Can you hear the voices, as he did?"

Harry blinked. "I—sometimes, I have…when I was close to death… How is it that I can touch you?"

She smiled wanly. "We're alike, you and I. I am not quite dead, and you are not quite alive."

Harry felt a sudden pang of emotion, and he hunched over protectively, riding it out. It was grief, he realized, when the worst of it had passed, like a wave sweeping by. Grief, for the half of his soul that had been ripped from him by some unknown violence, and had left the void from which his strange powers stemmed.

"Who is he—that person I'm like?" he asked, fearing that he already knew the answer.

"His name was Tom. Tom Riddle. He was a student here, many years ago."

Harry swallowed thickly. _Voldemort_. His mother's murderer. How galling it was, to know that once there had been someone like him, with the same mysterious powers, and perhaps the same questions. To think there was someone who had perhaps learned some of the answers—and to have that person be forever beyond reach.

"But you are also like her," the woman said, gesturing across the room. Harry looked, but saw nothing in the darkness. "My mother," the woman elaborated. "She was the strongest witch of her age, and she penetrated more deeply the veil dividing life and death than any other since her. That's how she earned her name."

"Her name?" Harry asked softly.

There was a slight, unhappy smile playing on the woman's lips as she uttered her bitter reply.

"My mother, Rowena. The Raven's Claw."


End file.
